It has been 90 years since the end of the Great War. There are only 10 confirmed veterans of WWI still with us who were there for the first Armistice Day. There were 23 alive last year at this time, and 51 in 2006. Next year may very well be the last.
Three of Britain's surviving 4 WWI veterans participated in remembrance ceremonies today. From the BBC:
"Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively at a ceremony at London's Cenotaph...
Mr Allingham - the world's oldest World War I veteran and the UK's oldest man - said: 'I'm glad to be here. It means a lot to me. I hope people realise what my pals sacrificed on their behalf.'
The last-known survivor of the Battle of Jutland, who is partially deaf and nearly blind, said his comrades should never be forgotten, and he could not describe what they meant to him."
The last living US veteran of the Great War is Frank Buckles, who enlisted at 15 in in 1917 and drove ambulances and motorcycles in France. He was honored this past May at the white house as the last American doughboy.
Losses from the Great War are unimaginable, even in hindsight from the other side of WWII: 41 million casualties, military and civilian. This includes 1,397,800 French military deaths with 4,226,000 wounded. Russia and the German empire lost more. Pueblo, Colorado's courthouse plaque commemorated 62 deaths in WWI, until historian Michael P. Thomason started to research their stories and discovered 85 more area residents who served and died.
Memories fade, and old soldiers fade away. It is imperative that we remember.
For my relatives: Ned Olmsted, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1, 27th Division and Sergeant Stanley Clark of Newburgh, New York, who served in one of the National Guard units that comprised the 27th Division.
Nicholas Sarkozy's tribute to soldiers executed during the war was an interesting twist on the occasion.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE4AA39120081111
Posted by: Executed Today | November 12, 2008 at 10:33 AM