SYDNEY -- The last known combat veteran of World War I was defiant of the tolls of time, a centenarian who swam in the sea, twirled across dance floors, and published his first book at 108. He also refused to submit to his place in history, becoming a pacifist who wouldn't march in parades commemorating wars like the one that made him
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World War I was raging when Choules began training with the British Royal Navy, just one month after he turned 14. In 1917, he joined the battleship HMS Revenge, from which he watched the 1918 surrender of the German High Seas Fleet, the main battle fleet of the German Navy during the war.
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Choules and another Briton, Florence Green, became the war's last known surviving servicemembers after the death of American Frank Buckles in February, according to the Order of the First World War, a U.S.-based group that tracks veterans. Choules was the last known surviving combatant of the war. Green, who turned 110 in February, served as a waitress in the Women's Royal Air Force.
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But despite the fame his military service (and longevity) brought him, Choules later in life became a pacifist who was uncomfortable with anything that glorified war. He disagreed with the celebration of Anzac Day, Australia's most important war memorial holiday, and refused to march in parades held each year to mark the holiday.
http://www.military.com/news/article/last-world-war-i-combat-vet-dies-in-australia.html?ESRC=army.nlIt is a fact that those who have seen the worst of war, will most often become pacifists later in life.
There is the story of a Japanese fighter ace that went from the China Theater, to Pearl harbor and through to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to become a Buddhist priest that deplored war and violence.
RIP Mr. Choules...and Thank you for your insights on the horrors of war, the things that never change, the things one must experience to comprehend.
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