Auf wiederseh'n, alte kamerade!
"A German believed to have been the country's last World War I veteran passed away this month.
Erich Kaestner died January 1 in a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 107, his son told The Associated Press."
How much the wars of the past century have impacted Germany can be seen by strolling through their cemetaries -- they are usually close by the churches. I went through the one in Ramsau (one of the most famous ones in Germany as it is popular with tourists in Bavaria) and there are rows and rows of names and dates -- those between 1914-1918 or ones that died of gas or other injuries are marked with a Maltese cross and the ones from 1939-1945 with a Greek cross. Some are on walls with no graves as they died elsewhere and never came back.
Cookie Sewell
I have a cousin on one of those back walls. His mother waited for decades for him to come back from the Soviet Union. The last anyone heard was that he ~may~ have still been alive in 1953. He was sixteen when he was captured in 1945.
Wonder how many vets are alive and well and living in South America.....
Craig
Probably not many who were actual ~combat~ vets. It's usually the political hacks that bug out when the gettin' is good. The grunts are the ones that have to clean up the politicans' mess - in ANY war.
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