World's last known World War I veteran dies

Well, there's another war whose veterans are now gone.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46297110.../#.TzGB11zOUsI

'Time of my life': Last known WWI veteran dies at 110

Born Florence Beatrice Patterson in London in 1901, she joined Women's Royal Air Force in September at age of 17

updated 2 hours 53 minutes ago

LONDON — Florence Green, the world's last known veteran of World War I, has died at the age of 110, the care home where she lived said Tuesday.

Briar House Care Home in King's Lynn, England, said Green died Saturday, two weeks before her 111th birthday.

Born Florence Beatrice Patterson in London on Feb. 19, 1901, she joined the Women's Royal Air Force in September 1918 at the age of 17.

She went to work as a waitress in the officers' mess at RAF Marham in eastern England, and was serving there when the war ended in November 1918.

Green remembered her wartime service with affection.

"I met dozens of pilots and would go on dates," she said in an interview in 2008. "I had the opportunity to go up in one of the planes but I was scared of flying. I would work every hour God sent. But I had dozens of friends on the base and we had a great deal of fun in our spare time. In many ways, I had the time of my life."

She was officially recognized as a veteran when a researcher found her service record in the National Archives.

The RAF marked her 110th birthday in February 2011 with a cake.

Asked what it was like to be 110, Green said "It's not much different to being 109."

The war's last known combatant, Royal Navy veteran Claude Choules, died in Australia in May.

After his death, Green became the war's last known surviving service member from the war, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans.

It's been a few years since the last one who saw action checked out.

Noticed at the last veterans day that the WWII guys are starting to thin out a bit now too.

My grandfather was a World War I vet. He was a machine gunner. Carried some serious scars from the war and refused to own a gun after it. When he passed away I remember my mom going through his dresser drawer and tucked away in the bottom drawer were horrifying photos of the trenches. Rotting bodies all over the place. It looked like the Pirates of the Carribean movie. Skeletons with rotting clothes and flesh on them. One thing he did tell my mom is he would never forget the smell of it. I can only imagine what it smelled like.

One of the things my grandfather brought home from the war was a big artillery shell. It sat in a corner of their living room. I remember playing with it when I was a kid. It was almost as tall as I was at the time and very heavy. My cousin ended up with that shell and had the funny feeling he better have it checked out. My grandfather assured us it was no longer live. Well when it was checked it was live! That fucker could have blown the whole house and us up! I remember reading a story about a guy in Pennsylvania that found a Civil War cannon ball. He was cleaning it up in his garage and the thing exploded and blew him and the whole garage up. That black powder was still good after all those years.

My sister's father in law was a young boy in Germany during World War II. Since the town he lived in was in a strategic location the government stashed a bunch of weapons there. After the war kids were digging them up and getting blown up by hand grenades and shooting themselves with guns. It was decided the whole huge stash of weapons had to go so they gathered them up in one big pile and set explosive charges. When they set off the charges the explosion was so huge it just about blew out every window in town and even cracked some foundations.



We have read about the civil war in books and hear about it in history classes and such but this rare movie footage shows some of the actual veterans of that war. We have all heard of the infamous rebel yell and heard accounts of how terrifying it sounded with huge lines of men screaming it. Thank's to this old footage, we can hear it for real.