A Dot on the Horizon- World War I

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Try as we might, it is inevitable that events once genuinely alive for us become relegated to mere blips on the historical timeline, embellished with a few highlights in our memories. We simply can't hold every turn of history close to our breast, however tragic or significant it may be. Everything eventually fades in importance; like a ship sailing out to sea, becoming steadily smaller, fading to the tiniest dot and disappearing below the horizon.


World War One ended 90 years ago today. And, in one sense, it has now become that 'tiniest dot'. The facts are well known: Trench warfare, horrific pain, senseless death, lives destroyed, families ripped apart, Verdun, The Marne, The Western Front. The Stench. 40 Million Casualties. 20 Million Deaths. There was a time when some of us heard first hand stories about all this, when some of us knew someone who had served in the war.

But on this 'Armistice Day' only one American veteran of World War One still lives. One last living echo. One last 'tiny dot'. He is Frank Buckles from Charleston, West Virginia who is 107 years old. A man who made it out alive and went on to live 90 years longer than his buddies who died. What sobering perspective this provides in understanding the potential that was lost each time another young soldier fell in this wretched conflict. 90 more years.

Here is the last 'tiny dot on the horizon' of World War One in The States:



And if you cross the pond, 3 more frail Brits still survive from the Great War. None more revered than 112-year-old Henry Allingham who tried so hard to struggle out of his wheelchair to lay a wreath on London's Cenotaph Memorial in front of the crowds today- but just couldn't summon the strength. Cheers, Henry:



We naturally bring our deepest feelings to the modern conflicts which touch us more directly. But World War One now affords ample distance to feel its wider, albeit less personal, sweep- the longer term consequences and the what-might-have-beens.

Consider this: Below is the grave of a man named Wilson Kettle from Newfoundland, Canada. You may think I've included the photo to accompany some tragic World War One story, but I have no knowledge that he served there. Actually, his story is much more about fruition than it is about death. Because when Wilson Kettle died in 1963 he held the world record for having the most living descendants: 582. That's 582 people who would not have lived had his young life been taken in a war. Now, 45 years after his death, those 582 must have ballooned into thousands.


With the potential for descendants in numbers such as that, and with the very existence of so many others teetering in the balance, it makes you wonder: How many lives turned upon the fate of the men in this below WW1 picture?


And was there someone analogous to 'Wilson Kettle' in the below group who was killed in battle and never lived to see hundreds of descendants grow up and, well, even exist?


What acorns were crushed then that would have been Oak Trees now? It's the question itself that matters the most- how it brings pause, awareness and compassion.

As for me, this is far less speculative. You would not even be reading this if the gravestone of one WW1 soldier named 'Harry Taylor' in Arlington National Cemetery was inscribed with 'Died 1918' instead of 'Died 1956'. Of that I am most grateful.

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