In Flanders Fields

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and sacrifice.

John McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario on November 30,1872 to two established, respectable and hardworking Scottish parents, David McCrae and Janet Simpson Eckford. The McCraes were staunch Presbyterians with the resilience and self-reliance of second-generation pioneers in Canada. David McCrae instilled a strong sense of duty and healthy respect for military values in his two sons. John McCrae was offered a scholarship from the University of Toronto in 1888 where he went on to study physiology and pathology as well, McCrae wrote poetry for the school paper The Varsity. From there he graduated from medical school with a gold medal for his outstanding academic performance. In 1899 he moved to Montreal to accept a fellowship in pathology and to study at the McGill University School of Medicine. Although McCrae was devoted to his medical career; when the Boer War erupted he was one of the first volunteers who wished to go and contribute to the ...

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Somehow the gap was filled with the Canadians who even managed to counterattack, a strategy that came as a complete surprise to the Germans. John McCrae’s post was near a particularly dangerous section of the road. The Germans had it covered with artillery fire for seventeen days of battle. McCrae would later write:



"…Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not be done.


After the Second Battle of Ypres there was no longer any doubt of the courage and strength of the Canadian troops. On May 2nd, McCrae’s close friend and one time student, ...

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