The Saga of the Last to Die...

[L Verge]

You might enjoy this century-old contest to see which side of the CW lasted the longest:

http://mashable.com/2015/04/10/civil-war...WGoJDK6OqI

[JMadonna]

(05-08-2017 11:04 AM)L Verge Wrote:  You might enjoy this century-old contest to see which side of the CW lasted the longest:

http://mashable.com/2015/04/10/civil-war...WGoJDK6OqI

Interesting. I recognize the Civil War Sailors & Soldiers monument in the Detroit picture as they marched through Cadillac Square, but little else.

[Darrell]

(05-08-2017 11:04 AM)L Verge Wrote:  You might enjoy this century-old contest to see which side of the CW lasted the longest:

http://mashable.com/2015/04/10/civil-war...WGoJDK6OqI

Thanks for that link - great photos!

Richard Serrano, in the "Last of the Blue and Gray," described Bruce Catton's youthful remembrances of the aged veterans in his hometown. Although speaking of the Yanks, I like to think his words also applied to the Boys in Gray:

Bruce Catton, long a chronicler of the Civil War, could recall his boyhood in the “pre-automobile age” of rural Michigan and how a group of old Union veterans in white whiskers and blue greatcoats had delighted his young eyes. He remembered one selling summer berries from a pail he hooked over the stub of his forearm, an arm he had lost in the Battle of the Wilderness. A church deacon had fought with the 2nd Ohio Cavalry in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, burning barns and killing livestock. Another had returned to Gettysburg for the 50th anniversary there, and when he arrived back by train and his buggy was late, the 70-year-old simply hoisted his bag and walked the five miles home. “They were grave, dignified, and thoughtful,” Catton would write of his hometown heroes. “For the most part they had never been 50 miles away from the farm or the dusty village streets; yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything. . . . All that was real had taken place when they were young; everything after that had simply been a process of waiting for death.” Eventually, one by one the old men were carried up a small hilltop to the town cemetery. “As they departed,” Catton wrote, “we began to lose more than we knew we were losing.”

[L Verge]

Wonderful words, and they apply today to the last of our WWII veterans as well as our Korean War and Viet Nam vets. For the past 4-5 years, Surratt House has participated in the national Blue Star Museums program where active and retired members of the armed services and up to five of their dependents receive free tours between Memorial Day and Labor Day. All they have to show is their current military ID card.

At first, we were told that the program was only for active duty members; however, being a military brat myself and having a father who served in WWII and Korea, I immediately stretched the rules to include regular retirees who had made the military their career. Those vets have so much history to tell with few people who want to listen - outside of their own comrades at the American Legion, the VFW, and other such organizations.

I watched Sixty Minutes last night and listened intently to a man who served as an American prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. His Jewish parents escaped Germany and came to America before the war, but he enlisted when our country entered WWII. After serving with a variety of forces, including a special unit under Patton, and surviving the Battle of the Bulge and D-Day, he served the trials after investigating and arresting members of the lower German echelon who had brutally participated in regional genocides on behalf of the Fuhrer.

This man is now 97 and still very active. He travels around the world forming defense groups who are fighting similar genocide programs that are still very active today. To listen to him talk and see the accompanying era photos was a wonderful history lesson for all who watched the program.