Buried under news of Libya, Wisconsin and Oscar was the headline that Corporal Frank Buckles had passed away...the last surviving American veteran of the First World War.
Worldwide, there are now two (2) living veterans of that war, both British, and one is a woman who did not see combat.
(Incidentally, there are currently only 91 people left in the world who can be verified to have been alive in the nineteenth century.)
Two veterans left, out of 65 million who participated in that war -- one in six of those died on the battlefield.
WWI is now no different to us than the US Civil War, a conflict we've spent our entire lives learning about only from books and documentaries, and no witnesses. No new information can ever be obtained. Documents and photographs are all that remain of the war that, indeed, began all wars.
Around two million veterans of World War II still live in the United States. 900 die each day.
Worldwide, there are now two (2) living veterans of that war, both British, and one is a woman who did not see combat.
(Incidentally, there are currently only 91 people left in the world who can be verified to have been alive in the nineteenth century.)
Two veterans left, out of 65 million who participated in that war -- one in six of those died on the battlefield.
WWI is now no different to us than the US Civil War, a conflict we've spent our entire lives learning about only from books and documentaries, and no witnesses. No new information can ever be obtained. Documents and photographs are all that remain of the war that, indeed, began all wars.
Around two million veterans of World War II still live in the United States. 900 die each day.
