Claude Choules, the world’s final World War One veteran, died yesterday, at the ripe old age of 110.
A dual British/Australian citizen who lived almost his entire life in Australia, Choules became a pacifist after his experiences in the war and refused to take part in ANZAC Day parades unless ordered to.
A human end to a civilisation shaking era.
[B]
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
A long time ago I talked with a WW1 veteran. He was Moroccan and lived in a remote village in Morocco. I was stunned by his experiences and what he told me of his travails in the battlefields of France.
As a child I often listened also to a veteran of the spanish civil war …
now I can’t even witness battle scenes on tv or films …
It’s not like the WWII veterans are spring chickens either; they’ve been dropping like flies for many years now (there’s probably a better way of saying that). We know a guy who was on Normandy Beach on D-day. He shrugs it off like he was just following orders. He was not impressed by Steven Spielberg’s version of that event in Saving Private Ryan, saying there’s no way you can accurately depict it on film.
I loved his telling of how he earned his bronze star. The paper that came with it describes his heroic acts in continuing to radio in artillery positions while his position was being shelled (I think this was in France after D-day). His version: We were stuck there, behind a tiny little rise in the ground. There was nothing else to do but radio in coordinates (he was the radio operator).
