He
was born in the small city of Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 1872. He was the son of a military officer and the grandson of
Scottish immigrants. He was a doctor, yet
his lasting legacy comes to us from the brutality of war and from a poem that still speaks a century after his death.
John
McCrae studied in his home province at the Royal Military College and the University of Toronto. He later worked as a professor and surgeon on both sides of the border. Meanwhile, he started writing poetry. Perhaps, it was a way to distract himself from the routines of
medical study. He was a man of contrasts - even as a doctor, he went off to
war, serving in the Boer War in South Africa as a
captain of artillery. How did he reconcile his oath to do no harm with
the duties of a military officer?
