There’s something remarkable about World War I. It seems to mark the end of innocence for Europe, the last throes of “glorious” war. American geographical distance may well have meant it dimmed our own notions of martial glory to a lesser extent.
That conflict has long fascinated me (I’ve read so much about it that I now know how important a role castor oil played in the air war, which may or may not be a good thing). It seems long ago and yet vital to understanding the contemporary world. It struck me, therefore, as particularly poignant to hear that America’s last known World War I vet died this weekend:
“The [Washington] Post said that with [Frank] Buckles’ death, only a 109-year-old Australian man and a 110-year-old British woman were believed to survive from the estimated 65 million people who served in the 1914-1918 war.”
For me, hearing this came in the wake of a conversation with Rick Yarosh, a wounded veteran of the Iraq War, and a remarkably sunny guy. It seems there is certainly continuity in the human experience of war regardless of which war it is, but what is it that is lost when no one alive remembers a war any longer? What now are the remnants of the Somme, I wonder?
