The Epilogue of the Great War

I am definitely not Tom Brokaw nor Clint Eastwood...when it comes to honoring those that have died for the causes of America or the world. Being a history buff (dare I say a historian), I do have great respect for the many wars of this country's past as well as the world's past. But by no means, am I usually nostalgic about them and those that fought them. I tend to be a social historian, so hearing about the battles, the bloodshed, the death counts, etc. really don't pique my interest that much. I tend to study the causes, the people, the conditions, the humanity of those situations. Today, in my eyes those two worlds collided.

The last known combatant in World War I died today. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/05/australia.ww1.veteran.dies/index.html?iref=allsearch He was 110 years old. The last person (out of 70 million) that has a distinct memory of one of the great wars of modern world history. I have watched over the last few years as more and more of those that fought in the first world war died in the very old age. Earlier this year the last American WWI soldier, Frank Buckles, died. And every time an article headline told of another death, I would read the article to learn a small snippet of this soldier's life. I am not sure if I can fully understand why this interests me. But it does.

Maybe it is the stories of each soldier that draw me in. In most instances, the individual is one of humble origins that lived a fairly ordinary life after lying about his age to fight in the war. Who today would ever contemplate lying about his/her age to go fight in a war across the sea? But because they are one of the last live links to this great occurrence in our world's modern history, his life is shared with the world. We lose yet another witness to history.

We mourn those that connect us to the past every day. When a loved one dies. When a friend's mother dies. When we lose a childhood friend. They all take a part of our history with them. We too shall die at some time, taking with us all of our "ordinary" history that binds us with those that love us and touch our lives. That loss of history may not make it in print, but in no way is less important, just less public.

And so today I mourn the loss of a piece of our world's history. The Great War will always be on the pages of a history book and will live on through movies and novels. But we will never again see that time in history through the eyes of one of its participants. We must all witness what is going on in our world today, so someday there will be an article about one of our generation who is the last link to our shared history of today. Witness.