• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Canada's Last Great War Veteran

nonothing

Well-known member
Petition Background


Only three veterans of First World War remain. They are Lloyd Clemett (106 years of age), John Babcock (also 106 years of age) and Percy Wilson (105 years of age).

These three men constitute our only living link to the horrors and triumphs experienced by the more than half million Canadians who served under arms between 1914 and 1918. Yet, to our national shame, the proud history they embody is fast fading from Canadians' shared memory.

As polls undertaken by the Dominion Institute reveal, barely a third of our fellow citizens can name the battle of Vimy Ridge as a key Canadian victory in the First World War, even when the answer is hinted at in the question. One in four respondents thought Douglas Macarthur, not Sir Arthur Currie, was a great Canadian general in World War One; a result that reveals a stunning lack of awareness of both chronology and nationality. Equally disconcerting, less than half of 18 to 24 year olds surveyed were familiar with Lieutenant Colonel John McRae's immortal (or maybe not) war poem, In Flanders Fields.

Why do we seem doomed to forget a war that is as important to understanding Canada's journey from colony to nation state as, say, the American Revolution is to the history of the United States?

From the Great War onwards, it has been the veterans, more than anyone else, who have ensured the country understood the link between our military heritage and hard-won nationhood. Through their once million-strong national associations, such as the Royal Canadian Legion, annual Vimy dinners, overseas pilgrimages, and unremitting volunteer work, veterans have kept the traditions of Remembrance alive in communities large and small.

Now, not only are the Great War veterans disappearing, but their sons and daughters who served in the Second World War are, on average, 86 years of age. Of these 200,000 veterans alive today, more than five hundred pass on each week; an attrition rate greater than during the War itself.

The difficult truth is that the entire history of Canada's participation in the wars of the 20th century, especially the Great War, is rapidly slipping out of the realm of lived experience and into the fuzzy world of second- and third-hand memories, to be passed along, or not, to the next generation.

A national gesture needs to be made to mark this watershed moment.

The Dominion Institute is calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to offer the family of the last Great War veteran resident in Canada a full State Funeral. For a nation in urgent need of renewing the commitment it made at the end of the Great War to "never forget", a State Funeral would allow Canadians to come together to honour those who died, and accept, on their behalf, the responsibly to keep their memories alive.

Detractors will say that State Funerals are only for Governors General and Prime Ministers, or that they are designed to commemorate the life of an individual and not an event such as the Great War.

We say for once let's cast off the usual Canadian timidity and understatement when it comes to celebrating our past. If there ever was a time for our nation to be bold and generous in the commemoration of our history, traditions, and values, surely the passing of our last Great War veteran is that moment.

The death of the last Great War veteran will be a litmus test for Canada.

Are we, in the final analysis, a mature country that understands the value of honouring the sacrifices made by past generations to secure for Canada the future we now enjoy? Or have we become a nation of amnesiacs all too ready to sweep the Great War and its legacy into the proverbial dustbin?

History will soon be our judge.

The Dominion Institute
November 6, 2006


for those who want to sign the petition go to

http://www.dominion.ca/petition/index.php
 

nr

Well-known member
Isn't it amazing they have survived to 106 through not only the war but also the Spanish flu that killed 40 million worldwide during WW1, I believe I read, in one year,. They must have a tremendous immune system.
 

Kato

Well-known member
I've done a lot of reasearch into WWI. Two of my great uncles, and my great-grandfather all fought overseas. It was not like today's army. You enlisted, or were drafted, and you were in it until you either died, were wounded, or the war was won. No such thing as a tour of duty.

My uncles got there just in time for the big battle that broke the Hindenberg line. This led to what they called the Hundred Days that ended the war. One uncle was at the front for the grand total of 9 days before being shot and sent back to England to the hospital. The day he was shot, there were almost 2100 Canadians killed and wounded. In one day! :shock: His battalion had 503 men on Sept. 27, and by Sept 29 they were down to 103. There were only a couple of officers left alive. The Uncles never spoke of the war. We've learned more in the past few years than anyone who knew them ever heard straight from them.

My great-grandfather enlisted in the army in 1915. He fought overseas, and survived for three years. He left his wife and five children at home. My great-grandmother died in 1916, along with a baby girl, and the other four children were left alone. I think relatives cared for them while waiting for their father to be allowed to leave the army. He finally was allowed to go, and actually caught the Spanish flu before he could get home. He died 4 days before the war ended. The children, my grandmother and her brother and sisters were sent to an orphanage.

It was a terrible war. It should not be forgotten. I signed the petition. Thanks for posting about it.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
The reason we have tours of duty now is because of modern tech. Todays soldier sees way more actual combat than what soldiers of the past saw.
Example the average soldier in Vietnam saw more actual combat in 3 or 4 months than what the average WW2 soldier saw in 4 years of service.
I dont mean that to sound like im putting down the sacrifice of soldiers years ago. Please dont take me the wrong way.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
BTW one of the remaining vets has refused the State funeral. Claims he is no hero and doesnt deserve it. Claims the real heros died in France. :(
 

Kato

Well-known member
Nowadays though, if we were to lose two thousand soldiers in a day, would modern governments carry on with a war the way governments back then did?

There were many days in both of the first World Wars that had just such casualty counts. I find it quite amazing that my great-grandfather survived as long as he did. Over three quarters of the men he started out with did not see the end of the war.
 

RoperAB

Well-known member
Kato said:
Nowadays though, if we were to lose two thousand soldiers in a day, would modern governments carry on with a war the way governments back then did?

There were many days in both of the first World Wars that had just such casualty counts. I find it quite amazing that my great-grandfather survived as long as he did. Over three quarters of the men he started out with did not see the end of the war.

Im just going from memory here but in WW1 on the first day of the battle of the Somme I think our side had 60,000 casualties. The whole battle cost us something like over a half million casualities. Thats just in one battle in WW1 and the Axis power lost even more men. Plus its the civilians that suffered the most.
War Crimes? The Germans actually crucified one of our soldiers. They had no cross so they spiked him to a barn.
PS now a days if we lost 2000 soldiers we would have no army left period.
 

Latest posts

Top