GALLIPOLIS — Gallipolis City Commissioner Jon Lynch read a proclamation last Wednesday in front of the Municipal Building proclaiming May 23, 2008, as Poppy Day in Gallipolis in honor of the sacrifices of life and health made by the men and women of our armed forces.

Poppy Day is sponsored each year by the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary to remind Americans to honor these sacrifices.

According to the proclamation, America is the land of freedom, preserved and protected willingly and freely by citizen soldiers. Millions who have answered the call to arms have died on the field of battle. A nation at peace must be reminded of the price of war and the debt owed to those who have died in war.

The red poppy has been designated as a symbol of sacrifice of lives in all wars and the American Legion Auxiliary has pledged to remind Americans annually of this debt through the distribution of the memorial flower. The American Legion Auxiliary Lafayette Unit No. 27 of Gallipolis annually fulfills this pledge has proclaimed Friday, May 23, to be Poppy Day in the city of Gallipolis and ask that all citizens pay tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom by wearing the Memorial Poppy on this day.

It has been noted throughout history that after a major war, red poppies seemed to pop up in the battlefields and on soldiers’ graves. It seems that poppy seeds lay dormant in the soil and when the soil is heavily turned or dug up, it causes them to sprout.

The most detailed account of this event took place in World War I in Flanders Field, Belgium. In the craters where bombs fell and on the mounds of rubble, poppies bloomed everywhere.

According to the American Legion Auxiliary, the Flanders’ Poppy is a weed of the grain fields. Constant shelling of buildings causes the lime of building cement to spread over the ground soil and deep shelling of the terrain removes the surface top soil exposing underground lime. The heavily churned earth and the high concentration of lime from the limestone buildings made the perfect catalyst for this weed to grow.