One of the last living veterans of World War I (the Great War) passed away yesterday. I remember interviewing several WWI vets back in the 1990's. At that time there were about 10,000 U.S. veterans of the Great War left. Today there is one, and five from other countries. They are the last children of the 19th century.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31979722/?GT1=43001
I read this too, it pains me that things like this get swept under the rug when celebrities like Michael Jackson get weeks and weeks of coverage. The veterans who served in our armed forces deserve our utmost respect.
I was astonished to find out that in 2008 the last surviving Confederate Civil War widow passed away at 93. She was quite young when she married a man 67 years her senior in the 1930s. Her husband was just 16 when he fought in the war.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080902/news_1m2hopkins.html (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080902/news_1m2hopkins.html)
One of the WWI vets I interviewed in 1995 was, at that time, 105 years old. His father was actually born a slave.
That's pretty amazing indiana, my Grandfather was a fighter pilot in WWII, and by the time I had learned all this he had passed away relatively young. I wish I had the chance now to talk to him about his experiences over in Europe. My dad is a Vietnam vet, but he doesn't like to speak very much about it save for when we occasionally look at some of the slides he took while over there mainly of his buddies.
It does remind me a bit of my grandmother's husband. He served in France in WWII, and died a few months ago. He was the only WWII veteran I knew well, as all the ones from my family either died in the war or when I was too young to really understand.
I've been following the news of the WWI vets for some time. There are now just two or three British veterans (depending on how you count it) left.
Such a melancholy part of history, the deaths of the last of a generation. It's quite sad, but they're all men who've lived well into their 100s, all with good lives worth celebrating. We should all be so lucky.
My grandfather earned a purple heart in WWI; he passed away 40 years ago. It's always sad to be faced with the passage of time and the ultimate fact that each of us are mortal. It is worth pointing out that WWI ended over 90 years ago. That's 90 years.
My grandmother (my mom's mom) was a young girl of 14 during the 1899 ~ 1902 Anglo-Boer War and she could speak fluent English and High Dutch as well. Because of this, she was co-opted to be a translator in the courts of the area she lived in at the time.
She lived to a ripe old age (97) and she wasn't ill at all when she passed away peacefully. The stories she and her husband told me when I was a kid! :teddyr:
I tell all my students:
Listen to the stories all those old veterans can tell. They are passing from the earth now, and we shall not look on their like again.