World War I veterans

[Haversack]

K.D. Lightner wrote: By the way, the countdown now is that there are only 30 WW I and WW I era soldiers left worldwide. There are also 4 unverified claims. There have been 28 WW I veterans who have died so far in 2007.

One died last week in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 106 years old and a veteran of the German army.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c...G61QV5G31.DTL&hw=germany+kaiser&sn=004&sc=489

Haversack.

 

[Mojito]

Australia has lost all our WWI vets - the last to go were given (or at least, their families were offered) State funerals. There's tremendous interest down here in the war, and it increases every year with many younger generation Australians now making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli. Although the history is occasionally subject to revisionism, it is still seen as a seminal part of our forging as a nation. It was the only compulsory unit of study in our Year 12 Modern History class in high school here in NSW, and was also covered in Year 10 history. I knew several vets and sometimes attended dawn services with them on ANZAC day - on one memorable occasion we were with several of them in the Changi War Cemetary.

I never knew my grandfathers - they died many years before I was born - but both enlisted in WWI. One of them had lied about his age to join the Boer War, then signed up for WWI as well. I'd grown up with many stories of my paternal grandfather, and recently the Australian National Archives made the WWI service records available for free on-line. We downloaded my grandfather's records, and were delighted to find that everything we'd been told (about the actions he was in, about his injuries) was backed up by the documentations. My father, like many men of his age, is not overly emotionally demonstrative about his personal life. I've rarely seen him so moved as when we found the records for him - he kept saying over and over what a gift he'd been given in being able to rediscover his father, who had died in the 1950s.

 

[Air Boss]

And Ft Polk, LA, ain't one of 'em.

Neither are Benning or Hood.

 

[Big Man]

Neither are Benning or Hood.

I didn't find Benning too bad (except for a tiny little incident at the O' Club bar once upon a time). But that was a long time ago.

My son was at "Fort lost-in-the-Woods" (Leonard Wood) in the winter of 2002. I visited him there for his graduation in February. Talk about cold! I'm not sure which would be worse, the cold at Wood or the heat at Jackson. [huh]

 

[52Styleline]

In the mid 1960's the WWI vets always had a booth at the local county fair. When I came back from my own war in the 70's they were no longer represented. I'm glad I had the chance to meet a few of them and in fact, my best 1903 Springfield rifle and my WWI era Colt 45 both came from one of these fine gentlemen.

One really cannot understand WWII without understanding WWI. Everything that happend in the 30's and 40's had beginnings in the earlier war. A clear case of those not learning from history being compelled to relive it.

Speaking of Vets, in the 50's there was a TV program called "You Asked For It". People would write in with questions and they would answer them on the show. Someone asked if any Civil War Vets were still alive and the program found one from the GAR and one from the CSA still living. Both had been drummer boys during the 1860's. I think it remarkable that they were still around during my own lifetime.

 

[Hondo]

I don't know how I missed this post, excuse me if you've seen this as there is a post/thread over in WWII section, a photo here of my grandfather in France in 1917, same outfit as Sgt. York.

WWI 82nd Division.

Between April and July, 1918, less than a year after its formation, the division deployed in small unit groups to France to fight in World War I as the 82nd Infantry Division. In nearly five months of combat the 82nd fought in three major campaigns and helped to break the German Imperial Army. Alvin Cullum York was a soldier in the division and became famous for his heroism in World War I. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, killing 20 German soldiers and capturing 132 others.