Say Anything Blog

The Last of the Last!

Mr. Buckles, who was profiled by The New York Times last fall, became the nation’s last veteran of the “Great War” on Monday, with the passing of Harry Richard Landis at a Tampa nursing home. Mr. Landis, who died at the age of 108, spent two months training as an Army recruit at the end of the war in 1918. While he was never stationed overseas, Landis was counted among an estimated 4.7 million Americans who served during World War I.

Only two months ago, there were three surviving U.S. veterans of World War I: Buckles, Landis and J. Russell Coffey. But Mr. Coffey passed away in December, and with Landis’ death earlier this week, America has, in the words of historian Richard Rubin, reached “the last of the last” among its soldiers from that conflict.

Mr. Buckles’s Wikipedia entry.

Time marches on.  When one thinks of it a chapter of history will close forever.  This strikes me as remarkable that soon the last will go as my grandfather who was a veteran of World War Two died a fairly old man nearly fifty years ago.