My wife had a great uncle that served in World War One in France. We were digging through some boxes of "stuff" at her parents house and found his diary that he kept during the War. In it, he describes gas attacks, marching through mud past his knees for days at a time, having to dig horses and wagons out of it, and oh yeah, pretty viscious fighting, of all things. In short, just abysmal conditions, even defined by warfare standards. What's fascinating about WWI is that it was at the dawn of "high-tech" as far as warfare goes (mustard gas, zeppelins, trench warfare, the introduction of tanks), yet was still "low-tech" in several ways (horses, bolt actions, nonsynthetic fabrics). Imagine fighting trench warfare in the mud and sludge wearing wool and cotton equipment while rats run over you while your trying to sleep in it. He talked about gong over the top of a trench when his arms sank into the sides of the trench, and he pulled out an arm, not connected to any other part of the body. He said that it didn't bother him at that moment (immediate survival was high on the list of priorities), but a few days later he wondered who it belonged to, and wondered if he would suffer the same fate...dying anonymously in a place he never thought he would be, seeing things that the people back home could not imagine in their worst nightmares, and suffering through conditions that would change him for the rest of his life.
While reading through his diary, I began to wonder if there were any Vets still alive from "The Great War". What a fascinating period of warfare technology, and without the participants around to pass on the history of it, it's almost as if that period of time has died, along with the people. I think that as the generations of those who had been there and done that are still around, it's up to us that live longer to carry on the lessons that they've learned, thus keeping their spirit and hard won knowledge alive, long after they're gone. What's the old saying..."Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it"? One of the cool things about history is that we can read it, and learn from it, without having to suffer the consequences of being present while it was being made, but it's up to us as a whole to not repeat the same mistakes. People really are living history textbooks.
Take care,
John Johnson
