By Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writer
Saturday, January 22, 2011
TAMPA — Every Memorial Day, members of the American Legion USS Tampa Post 5 have gone all out to remind the world why freedom matters.
They have placed candles before hundreds of gravestones in their cemetery, which currently stands at 728 graves dating back to the Spanish-American War. The next morning they replace the candles with American flags. A bigwig comes in to speak; in the past, these have included generals.
Before it's all over, retired Lt. Col. Daniel Hall would address his peers in a strong voice, reciting a famous poem from memory:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row …
Another lieutenant colonel, John McCrae of the Canadian Army, wrote In Flanders Fields in 1915, during World War I.
Each year, Col. Hall brought the poem — and buried soldiers everywhere — into the moment.
"It ...