Harry Patch The Last Veteran To Serve In The Trenches died today at the age of 111.
He Served in the ba'ttle of Passchendale where 3 of his friends died and he was wounded.
R.I.P
[deleted]
A distant relative of mine served in the trenches. He had "shell shock" as they called it at that time or PTSD as we understand it today. He literally shook all the time and it was from the psychological effects. He died before I was old enough to ever think to ask him about his experiences. War must be a terrible horrific thing to go through, I'm certain anyone who has never experienced those living nightmares can understand. I had an opossum die in our backyard once and I will never forget the terrible sickly sweet stench of decay. I cannot comprehend how nightmarish a battlefield in WW1 must have smelled. Or how terrifying it must have been to live through an artillery shelling or going over the top into the teeth of machine guns.
I sometimes forget to be thankful, but I'm always thankful I never had to fight in a war.
RIP to all the victims of wars, be they soldiers, sailors, air-men, marines or civilians.
Pleasuring a man with a socked foot one time does not make a person gay - Peter Griffin
Dear naturboy99,
thanks for your comment - especially for these lines:
"I sometimes forget to be thankful, but I'm always thankful I never had to fight in a war."
Absolutely. Were politicians more fully aware of the horrors of war which their actions do provoke sometimes, they might act more prudent and less nationalistic. Will they ever learn?
"RIP to all the victims of wars, be they soldiers, sailors, air-men, marines or civilians."
The greatness of your point of view is that it includes the victims from ALL sides, not just from among one of them. Many thanks for that!
Both of my grandfathers fought in WWI - my father's father for the German and my mother's father for the Austrian army (to be more exact: Austro-Hungarian, or, k. & k. which means Imperial & Royal).
And my father had to fight from 1943 on, until the very last day: He got captured by the British, and had more luck than many others, for he found himself under the custody of an officer who found him of use, for translating texts and for technical work at the wireless station, for fixing damaged motors and the like.
That officer even went so far to write a letter when in 1947 my father was released, saying that he recommends the authorities to give aid and support to my father when applying for work.
Noble gentlemen like that officer are those who help best closing the wounds of any war. Who, then, needs dubious movies like "Im Westen nichts Neues" (the original title)?
Let me end with one question please: Are there still any veterans alive who were soldiers but not in the trenches? Or has now the very last one passed away?
Best regards,
sprendlinger
"Let me end with one question please: Are there still any veterans alive who were soldiers but not in the trenches? Or has now the very last one passed away?"
Only one survivor on active duty in the face of the enemy: seaman Claude Choules. He is currently living in Australia, served with the British navy during WW I and transferred to the Royal Australian Navy before WW II.
There are three other survivors:
Frank Buckles (the last surviving US veteran), who was an ambulance driver for the US army during WW I, serving in Britain and unoccupied France. (He served in the US army and was a POW in WW II.)
John Babcock (the last surviving Canadian veteran), on training in Britain during WW I.
Florence Green (the last surviving veteran in Britain), serving WW I as a mess assistant with the Women's Royal Air Force at RAF Marham.
Hello mivadar,
thank you very much for the valuable info!
Have a good time...:-)
Best regards
Andreas (sprendlinger)
I noticed that most war veterans (of any war) tend to be unusually long lived (at the high end of the average life expectancy at least). Perhaps these extra years were "granted" to them to make up for all those soldiers who died young, so that they can be constant living reminders of the wars?
Just a thought...
avatar1140; Not so for my Paternal Grand-Father. Was in the A.E.F. and was gassed in 1918. Recovered but it caught up with him in 1948, R.I.P. Born 1898.
share
...........When I was a kid, growing up in Upper Michigan, my next door neighbor had been one of the "polar Bears" is the local National Guard unit was nicknamed. during the First World War. After the fall of the Czarist government in Russia his unit was sent to Arcangel extensively to prevent war materials from falling into German hand, but also because of US and British concerns over a Bolshevik victory. He would joke about his unit making such an impression on the Bolshevik forces they were referred to, negatively of course, in the Soviet national anthem (the reference to "invaders". When the war ended they were to be withdrawn, but the harbor was frozen so they had to stay and fight till Spring of 1919. He passed away in his eighties.........They was another World War One veteran lived just down the street. He fought in France and also passed on in his eighties........Today there is only one US World War One veteran left as far as I know. He lied about his age and joined up in his early teens. It sort of makes you wonder how long the World War Two veterans will be with us.
TAG LINE: True genius is a beautiful thing, but ignorance is ugly to the bone.
andrewwjohnson; Thanks for the very interesting information. Now it is the WWII Veterans that are fading away, very fast. My Father being 84. They were the ones that held the line.
shareIt's seems to me that time is just going by so fast. I remember on 9/11 I was in the 6th grade. Now I'm in the Air Force and about to go to a'stan in a few months. I can still vividly remember the attacks like it just happened. Yet it was almost 10 years. Same thing with my dad. He was in the national guard during vietnam and he still remembers the riots he had to deal with here like it was yesterday. Our vets are getting old and dieing off. But let us never forget what they did for us.
shareMy grandfather was a WWI in the Army Engineer Corp. and served in France. He was a great man and a hero of mine. I'll always remember the great American flag draped over his casket when he died when I was 16. They folded it up and gave it to my mother after the burial. She flew it on every 4th of July and patriotic holiday thereafter until her death. I will never forget him.
CaptainJohn17
"I sometimes forget to be thankful, but I'm always thankful I never had to fight in a war."
Absolutely. Were politicians more fully aware of the horrors of war which their actions do provoke sometimes, they might act more prudent and less nationalistic. Will they ever learn?
I hope that his many years after the war were great.
RIP