I recently had a chance to visit the National WWI Museum in Kansas City. Did you know it is the first national monument and museum outside Washington, D.C.? The museum is located inside the Liberty Memorial, a 217-foot-tall obelisk on General John Pershing Boulevard. Fittingly, the street is named for the Missouri native who was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWI.

One of the most unique parts of the museum is a glass bridge that crosses a field of 9,000 red poppies. Why poppies? Few things survived the bombs and mortars that destroyed the fields of Flanders in northern France. However, the churning of the earth by those bombs brought forth long-buried poppy seeds, which bloomed there as never before. Some say they bloomed red because of the vast amounts of blood shed in Flanders field. Since 1922, the VFW has sold red poppies as a fundraiser on Veterans Day, a symbol of the sacrifices of so many. The poem "In Flanders Fields," written in battle by Canadian doctor Col. John McCrae was the inspiration behind this movement.

The poppies are the most colorful part of the exhibit as the rest of the museum's black, gray and brown hues reflect the mud of trench warfare, a common practice of each side fighting from within huge man-made trenches.