Royal tributes for oldest veteran
It is often noted that the generation which fought WWII is quickly passing; but what we often forget there are a handful of Veterans of World War I living. At the intersection of the 5th and 6th Corridors of the 2nd Floor at the A Ring one can see pictures of the living US Veterans of World War I. With the death of Henry Allingham there are two living British Veterans of World War I. They soon will be gone, but their voices can be heard on the pages of Lyn MacDonald’s multiple books on World War I, or the pages of the poems written by the soldiers of that war. Wilfred Owen of that war wrote perhaps the most haunting of the poems about World War I “DULCE ET DECORUM EST”, one which I commend to each of you. I would also commend Paul Fussell’s Great War in Modern Memory.
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.
