Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae served during World War I in the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a surgeon, although he is best known for his poem In Flanders Fields. The poem’s symbolism of the poppy would lead to its use as a sign of remembrance. Born in 1872, McCrae graduated from medical school in 1898. He later served as a professor of pathology, and a pathologist at several Canadian Hospitals. He was also a member of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1914, with the outbreak of WWI at age 41, he…
