Last surviving WWI veteran is buried

LONDON — They laid Harry Patch to rest today and with him the last living link to what is still called in this country The Great War. His funeral was held in Wells Cathedral down in Somerset, an honor that would have been unimaginable when he was born 111 years ago.

Patch, who died 10 days ago, served as a corporal machine gunner in the trenches in France for a mere four months in 1917 before being severely wounded and sent home. He was, as he knew, luckier than most of his comrades. But in some ways not so fortunate. Patch kept his experiences bottled up inside him until he reached his 100th birthday. It was only after that he began to speak out loud about what he had seen and what he did in that war that did not end all wars.

Having seen in his first charge over the top at the Battle of Paschendaele (Ypres to Americans) what happens when military ordnance intersects with the human body, he decided to do what he could to not kill another human being. The 100-year-old man confessed to always aiming his machine gun below the knee of the Germans staggering through no man's land toward his position. At Paschendaele, about five miles of ground were taken at a cost of half a million Allied casulaties and about 350,000 German losses. His survival of that carnage gave him unimpeachable moral authority and he became perhaps the single most believable spokesman against war on the planet.

Britain's new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has memorialized his life with a great poem.  It is well worth taking a moment to read it and reflect.   

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/united-kingdom/090806/last-surviving-wwi-veteran-buried