« HR 2640, mental committments and all that... | Main | Wierd case gets even wierder »
I guess if you survived the Somme you're hard to kill
Queen Elizabeth meets with Britain's three surviving WWI vets. The oldest is 106, which means that (like the U.S.'s longest surviving Civil War vets) he was more than a bit underage when he enlisted (as in 14-15 at the Somme).
Understand, this fellow was born in the first year of the reign of Edward VII. In American terms, he was born the year after President McKinley was assassinated, and Teddy Roosevelt took over.
Welcome, Instapundit readers! If you have an interest in the right to arms, might I suggest you check out my documentary film, starring not only Instpundit, but also Gene Volokh and Dave Kopel of the Volohk Conspiracy and lots of others. You can see a number of clips from it on YouTube.
2 Comments | Leave a comment
I ran across this article a few days ago. It is on the other survivor and apparently the last survivor who actually fought in the trenches. The description of the Third Ypres battle is horrific in the real sense; 500,000 British dead and wounded over the three month battle which works out to about 5000 per day. The Great War slaughtered a generation. Thankfully, despite all the horrors of the wars that followed, we never recreated the hell of the trenches.
"Storm of Steel" author Ernst Jünger
survived being wounded seven times
on the Western Front and was
Germany's most decorated soldier.
Hitler admired him but Jünger didn't
think much of Hitler.
Jünger lived to be 102-years-old.
I come from a long-line of German Jews
and German-Russian Catholics.
Best,
Marc