We wear a poppy on Remembrance Day because poppies surrounded the Canadian trenches in World War I?

Most Canadians recognize “In Flanders Fields:” it has been read on November 11 for almost a century. This poem was written by a battlefield surgeon, Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Expeditionary force. He was 42 years old. He had already been to the South African War in 1900. But nothing prepared Canadian soldiers for the carnage they encountered at Ypres in their first Great War experience. McCrae scribbled this poem as he traveled by ambulance during the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915. This battle lasted 16 days, and saw over 6000 Canadians killed or wounded.

McCrae’s words capture the essence of 20th century wartime experience. “In Flanders Fields” was first published anonymously in the British magazine Punch in 1915. McCrae was too busy fighting devastating conditions in the trenches to be concerned with being an author. He eventually died in his own field hospital in 1918.