WWI ended 100 years ago today. Do you have family stories to share?
7”The war to end all wars”
Here is a CNN photo essay (if you are on mobile, you might need to use the cnn app)
It was meant to be “the war to end all wars.”
But, of course, we now know that it was just the first World War – and a preview of more conflict to come.
More than 8.5 million troops perished in World War I, which ended 100 years ago this week. Fighting ended with an armistice signed on November 11, 1918.
Google news search today
One of my grandfathers fought in it: I believe he was an airman in that fledgling service. I should plunder my aunt’s memories (The other grandfather was a veteran of the Spanish-American War.)
Taps for WWI
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The taps performance above was done for the commemoration of the start of WWI, 4 years ago.
My paternal Grandfather served in WW1. He declined to talk about it, and after he passed, Grandmother also refused to talk about anything he might have told her. However they were not married until some time after the war (I think he was about 15 years older than her and a widower). Unfortunately he suffered from senility by the time I was only a few years old, so my memories of him are very vague. Apparently 1 year old me and he were absolutely great friends…
The only references to his service that we have are a copy of a newspaper clipping naming him as returned from overseas service, a picture of him in uniform, and his casket flag (from his military burial 50 years later).
God bless our veterans…
@duodec
I could have gotten much info and many memories from both sets of grandparents - sanitized of course - if I had possessed the wisdom to ask and listen.
I was young and didn’t understand the incredible value I let slide away.
3 of them were gone by my middle school years, and the other one lived elsewhere by then.
I am so regretful that I let them go without knowing much more of their worlds.
The grandfather who was in WWI - he volunteered for air service. Supposedly none of those people were expected to survive the war. So he gave away almost everything before leaving.
He did survive, but didn’t get a lot of stuff returned to him after the war.
He let that go.
@f00l Kids are callow and self centered. Nature of the beast, and its uncommon to downright rare to find those younglings who really care much about things that happened before they existed until they get older and understand context and consequence… unless there’s an overriding or shocking factor (Grandpa lost a leg or arm, or has horrible burns or scars, or…)
I wasn’t all that interested until college when a combination of family history became available, and I didn’t have to take boring rote-memorization history courses. Too late to talk to Grandfather, but I have confirmed that three of my four serving uncles all created journals or passed their stories on to their children.
@f00l My grandfather was also a pilot in WW1. When in training his was roommate’s with Jackie Kennedy’s father whom he said was a “cad”. He didn’t talk about it much the war though and never told us that they weren’t expected to survive the war, although looking at pictures of the planes they flew I can imagine that it wasn’t all that safe, especially when being shot at.
@Kidsandliz
Jackie Kennedy’s dad, “Black Jack” Bovier, was such a notorious and successful cad that he became the icon and role-model for many lecherous and hard-partying members of his class and his era.
Supposedly, Jackie and Lee both adored him.
Jackie’s mom’s (they were long-divorced) family did get him so drunk that he couldn’t walk Jackie down the aisle at her wedding. So Jackie’s also-adored step-father, Hugh Auchincloss, did the honors.
(obviously, Jack Bovier cooperated in getting so insanely drunk that he couldn’t walk straight on that day.)
The word “Cad”:
A man (esp of higher class) who behaves dishonourably, especially towards a woman.
‘her adulterous cad of a husband’
Many possible derivations for this word. One of the possible word histories is derived from a notorious instance of the Earls Cadogan (owners of Cadogan Square), who was lovers, among many others, with Jennie Jerome Churchill, mother of Winston Churchill.
@Kidsandliz
oops.
“Bouvier”.
There’s an obvious error. Ouch.
I really wish that Veteran’s Day was not a “move it to Monday and have three day weekends and lots of big sales” type holiday.
Our veterans deserve better.
WWI is I think the only time US troops fought Russian troops during a declared war?
53,402 US soldiers died in our short time in WWI.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
@f00l
I hope this pix doesn’t load sideways.
One of my grandfathers died before I was born, and the other was estranged from the family having abandoned his wife and three children in rural Alabama during the Depression. I don’t know if either of them served. However I found this account World War II quite moving. It’s from a series on YouTube called Veterans Voices. It’s a series of veterans of different conflicts telling their stories.
No family stories of WWI itself, but my grandmother and at least one (maybe two) of my aunts died from the Spanish flu that came home with the soldiers.
My maternal Grandmother & Grandfather met during the Great War.
I wouldn’t be here if Archduke Franz Ferdinand hadn’t been assassinated. So thanks, Gavrilo Princip!
Only among the draft dodgers. When the Russian Ambassador came through there were no Russians living here only Austrians. When the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador came through there were no Austrians living here only Russians. They never both though to come through at the same time.
@cranky1950 Galicia?
@mustardeleven Poland
My grandfather lived in an area that was pretty bad (Poland, just before it’s rebirth) He escaped the area by hiding under a pile of bodies loaded into a truck and he joined and helped the US forces. The area he lived in was so devastated that he and my grandmother were separated. So, he fought with the US forces and was able to come to the US because of that but came in thru Ellis Island. He learned English and US history and became a citizen, eventually moving to a Polish community at Throop, PA. Where… he and my grandmother found each other again. It had been 5 or 6 yrs since they were separated in Poland. Both thought the other dead. I don’t know how she got here but, glad they found one another. She lost her firstborn somehow during that time (died) and after they reunited went on to have my aunts, uncle and my dad. There are a few atrocious stories of events that happened to each before they reached the US but info is shaky.