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Posted: 3/28/2024 6:16:20 PM EDT
[Last Edit: AFARR]
[#1]
A few. …..sorry, misread the question as WW2
Did Rotations in the VA hospitals as a Podiatry Student. Circa 60 years after WWII. Remember one guy with one leg. Getting his history, I asked how he lost the leg. Normal answer is generally 'Diabetes' or 'an infection'...his answer: The Germans Shot it Off. Private practice. Patient just missed 100 years old (passed away last fall). Nice guy to chat with. Was a Marine who fought on Guadalcanal. |
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USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 6:19:18 PM EDT
[#2]
Yes. I got to meet a WWI veteran at a Veteran's Day ceremony in 2001 or 2002 (I can't remember.)
He died in 2003 at age 107. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 6:22:55 PM EDT
[#3]
Just one.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 6:24:10 PM EDT
[#4]
my grandfather
on 11 Nov, they were out on the sidewalk selling poppies for the DAV, no more 
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Posted: 3/28/2024 7:52:01 PM EDT
[Last Edit: gamboolman]
[#5]
My Grandfather, born in 1898 was in WW1. He was East Texas Farmer and came home and farmed and raised cattle until he died.
He never spoke to me about it. He passed when I was 14 year old. We had other relatives there, that I was probably around but too young to know/appreciate at that time. Respect for all the Veterans of all the Wars... |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:01:37 PM EDT
[#6]
Quite a few, growing up in the 50's and 60's there were still many of them still alive.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:21:01 PM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By OldArtilleryman: My wife's grandfather, a Canadian, was in both WWI and WWII. My great-grandfather fought in the Canadian Army in WWI. He was an American but got tired of waiting for the US to enter the war, so headed to Canada. He was wounded at Passchendaele. The three middle fingers of his hand were blown off and he couldn’t use the remaining pinkie and thumb. Canada released all their old military records so I have his complete file along with the surgeon’s notes from when he was wounded. I also found his US WWII draft card. It lists him as a pensioner from the Canadian Army. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:26:14 PM EDT
[#8]
My grandpa and his brother fought in Europe in WW1. Hey, part of a much bigger picture of the company he was in. My grandpa is the second guy from the left, standing in the back row.
 Attached File |
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KY, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:29:30 PM EDT
[Last Edit: kc4sox]
[#9]
My grandfather served in the army on the front in 1917
Does that count ? |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:55:33 PM EDT
[#10]
My great uncle. paternal grandmother’s older brother. I knew him when I was young and he was very old back in the 70s and 80s. He lived in Weston, West Virginia. Came back and went to work for the railroad, then later in life drove a school bus. Always gave me a 2 dollar bill. He was a good dude. Married my Aunt Louise, but they never had kids of their own, so they treated me like their own grandson. My Aunt Louise made really good ham salad. They always had a crystal jar of candied orange slices on their coffee table. It’s funny the things you remember from your childhood
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UT, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 8:59:37 PM EDT
[#11]
My grandpa. He was drafted in 1918 but never made it to Europe before the Armistice. Spent 6 months at Camp Vancouver in Washington after the war ended.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:03:22 PM EDT
[#12]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By Rodent: For several decades I hunted at the Catskill mountain cabin of a guy who fought in WWI with the Vermont Cavalry. They left their horses behind, though, and served with engineers instead. He had a great story about trying to hide under railroad ties while being strafed by a Fokker triplane. He was present at the world's first tank battle, in 1916 at the Somme. When NY computerized hunting licenses, we had a terrible time renewing his, because the system only went back to 1900, and he was born in 1897. He lived to be 100, and hunted until he was 97. The last few years he "hunted", we'd drive him uphill a bit in his old Willy's jeep, sit him by a tree, and hand him his old Marlin lever-action that we'd pretended to load. One time I checked in on him from above, and he'd tumbled down the hill. I ran down there. He was lying in a very awkward position, and his hat and rifle were still uphill where he'd rolled down. I opened his coat and was trying to listen for his heart and he scared the crap out of me by saying, "What are you doing?!" Turns out he'd just fallen asleep. Did he enlist in the Canadian Army and then the US? |
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CA, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:03:35 PM EDT
[#13]
A long time ago on an EMS call. Probably before 1990. He was pretty chipper, told us he was a stretcher bearer. He was proud of his service but you could see in his eyes that he saw things.
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TX, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:04:17 PM EDT
[#14]
My great grandfather, I was too young to ask questions and learned about his service in my tween years. He was a Lt. of some flavor. Funny side story, we lived in a small rural town in a different state. Everyone knows Everyone kind of thing. Local cemetery called up Dad and said hey, your grandmother died and when she was interred with your grandfather, they replaced his VA headstone with a shared one, would you like the VA one back? My father and family are jokesters. So he went down to the local cemetery to collect his headstone.
He gets there and loads up my great grandfather's headstone into the truck and the guy ask my dad, "hey you're a useful guy, would you like some more?" It seems the local cemeteries get stuck with these used headstones that they have no use for and apparently the headstoners won't take them back and slice the face off of and recycle them. So everyonce in a while he would head down to the cemetery and load up on granite or marble pavers. Flip them face down in the dirt, and eclectic footpaths became a thing at the old place. Great grandfather's was faced up and was always rumored to be a guest in the front yard under the Oak tree. True Story! |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:07:55 PM EDT
[#15]
There was one in the local American Legion when I was in high school. He was the only one.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:21:14 PM EDT
[Last Edit: DPeacher]
[#16]
Several. One of them lived next-door to my grandparents. You would always see them at stores around Memorial Day selling little artificial poppy flowers.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:25:14 PM EDT
[#17]
I grew up around a lot of WWII vets. When I was 10 years old, I spent 10 days at Balboa Naval Hospital in the medical ward. While I was there I got to talk to several Spanish American war veterans. At the time there were a number of them there waiting to die.
My high school world history teacher was a retired Navy Admiral who served in China during the Boxer Rebellion, WW 1, and WW II. I have also known several veterans who served in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. I have an uncle who was in the first landing wave on Iwo Jima, was on the line at the Chosin Reservoir when the Chinese Army entered the war, and partied at Chu Lai for Tet. He got out of the Marine Corps after 28 years of service. I asked him why he didn’t stay for 30, and he told me he was just to old for that line of work. 
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VA, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:29:07 PM EDT
[#18]
Yes...My Grandfather!
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:42:26 PM EDT
[#19]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By conductor: My father was born in 1899 and served in the 103rd Engineer Battalion in France in WW1. In 1915, when he was 16 years old he tried to enlist in the Canadian Army, but was rejected because of a large burn scar on his back. When he was just a toddler, he pulled a pot of hot soup off the stove and got the burn scar as a result. He served the US Army from May, 1917 to January 1919. In June of 1919 he re-enlisted in the Army and joined the Balboa Coast Artillery Corps in Panama, and was there until sometime in 1921. He died in 1951 when I was 8 years old. My late wife's father was born in 1896, and went to France in 1915 as a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service. He was there for 3 years, but that's really all I know about him. He died in 1963, before I met his daughter. Here is a photo of the monument erected by the French government in honor of the American volunteer ambulance drivers https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/31420/DSCN2379_JPG-3172108.JPG Made me think of these scenes from “The Razor’s Edge” the Bill Murray version. In the book, Larry was a pilot but I believe making his war experience that of an ambulance driver was more traumatizing and poignant.  "You wont be missed." |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:49:51 PM EDT
[#20]
None that I can recall.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:51:45 PM EDT
[#21]
My grandfather talked about interacting with civil war vets when he was a kid.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 9:55:39 PM EDT
[#22]
In the 5th grade I had a WW1 vet come speak in my history class. That fact that I still remember him speaking and the look on his face as he remembered it means that visitor was impactful.
My teacher was Ms. Baylor, my first black teacher. This was long before people turned woke. Her son Eldridge, was a good friend and salutatorian when we graduated HS. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:34:21 PM EDT
[Last Edit: OKnativeson]
[#23]
I knew a couple growing up. they were very, very old.
my great grandfather died a year before I was born. he was shot, gassed, shrapneled, gassed some more and left for dead in France. but he never died and finally got sent home on a hospital ship after the war was over. I heard all about him from everyone in the family. I have his Army photo hanging in my home office. his trunk we found was amazing. it was his Trench Raid kit (with 2-3 1911's). Scalps. necklaces of brass. homemade trench knife and a metal club of some type. its wild because the Raid Kit is basically the modern day Battle Belt. alot of magazines, pistols, knifes and first aid kits. His french porn collection even came home with him. nothing like postcards from Paris of nude, hairy women. the small towns in Oklahoma were terrified of the WWI vets when they got mad. bad things happened. they were always in the groups of other vets. they did not trust anyone else and were very quick to violence. and now you know how Tulsa got the Riot of 21. they totally cleared a section of town, quickly with a purpose. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:40:00 PM EDT
[#24]
Yes, a neighbor on my childhood street had a live WW1 surplus French 75 canon. We used to play on it until some guys from the govt made him demil it. It disappeared shortly there after.
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OH, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:40:00 PM EDT
[#25]
My great uncle Willy was a WW1 veteran. He was 70 odd years old in the 1960s when I met him.
The Gas Cape aka a poncho worked for him when he got snowed on in the trenches. He said a foot of snow on his gas cape was his warmest night in the trenches. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:43:04 PM EDT
[#26]
My grand father was a POW in WW1. He was drafted and fought on the Kaisers side, was brought to the US and stayed. He said that he knew a good thing when he saw one. He would hate what this place has become.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:45:43 PM EDT
[#27]
My great grandfather. He came over from Germany in 1913 and had to go back to fight in WWI.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:47:33 PM EDT
[#28]
Not that I know of
. I was born in '91 so all of them were already up there in age.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:52:34 PM EDT
[#29]
Born in ‘88, 36 now.
Grocery store bagger was a WW1 vet, talked to those who asked. My grandpa who was between WW2 and Korea, was the one who would have us talk to him. Mainly, be a good kid, respect what you have, type stories. Both of my great grandfathers were of age then for WW1 but didn’t go. Small town Indiana, probably wasn’t common? On the paternal side, grandmother side would have had 2 kids at the time, grandfather side was younger but 17-18 years old. Maternal side was still in Europe |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:55:57 PM EDT
[#30]
My grandfather was a Marine in WWI and II. He was in France in WWI, and San Diego in WWII. Worked for Fisher Body after the second war.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 10:58:43 PM EDT
[#31]
My wife's son from a previous marriage was a WW1 veteran.
He would tell stories about how they would beat up the civil war vets that would sneak into the VFW for free Beer because they weren't Veterans of Foreign Wars. |
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CA, USA
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Posted: 3/28/2024 11:01:16 PM EDT
[#32]
I worked in a bike shop in Seal Beach Caly from 1984-1988
We had an elder Irish customer thay would come in and talk. He was a very small guy. The summy that he turned 13 the British Army came into his village. All of the men and boys had to come down to a hall. Pretty much all of the men and any boy with pupic hair got sent to boot camp He said that his ration of food for three years straight was a chunk of meat the size of a thumb some bread and a small potato. |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 11:01:27 PM EDT
[#33]
Yes, more than a few.
Here is one for you, at my dad's first job, his boss was a Civil War Vet.  And I am "40 something" |
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Posted: 3/28/2024 11:33:45 PM EDT
[#34]
No but I've been shooting a 1917 made m1903 a lot lately.
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Posted: 3/28/2024 11:38:24 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Jodan1776]
[#35]
Grampa helping save the grateful Frenchies. I remember him well, into my mid teens. I adored him. Came home and became a caretaker for rich city folks' summer estates. Great uncle served, too, but no pics.
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Posted: 3/29/2024 12:10:59 AM EDT
[#36]
My paternal grandfather from Tennessee was a WWI veteran. He served in the 81st Division in France. He passed away in 1970 at age 74 when I was 8, so I remember him very well. He had several friends and acquaintances who were also WWI vets, but I don't remember much about them. Also, our next door neighbor was a WWI vet and served in the same division as my grandad. Mr. Harkins lived into his 90's and passed away in 1988.
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CA, USA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 12:15:01 AM EDT
[#37]
Yes. I'm 70 so quite a few although none particularly close nor immediate family. My dad became active in the local American Legion Post after WWII and all the Post commanders and other officers had been WWI vets when he and his "comrades" were getting involved. so we were around them for events, local parades, etc. An older retired Colonel lived nearby and he was kind of a booster for the ROTC units at USC and Military order of the world Wars which sponsored ROTC events, etc. (former officers group?). This guy had been in the cavalry and had ridden into Mexico with Pershing, after the war was involved with attempts to develop a shorter 1903 for firing from horseback. Apparently the horses were not at all receptive to the idea of a 30-06 being fired pretty much right next to their heads so that idea was dropped pretty quickly. One of my grandmothers lady friends was married to a pompous old gasbag who had been a Navy Captain and post WWI he'd been involved with some sort of tour around with a German submarine. But now, almost all of the WWII vets are gone, too.
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AL, USA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:10:19 AM EDT
[#38]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By midcap: My wife's son from a previous marriage was a WW1 veteran. He would tell stories about how they would beat up the civil war vets that would sneak into the VFW for free Beer because they weren't Veterans of Foreign Wars. Are you sure about that heritage Midcap? |
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MD, USA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 8:07:04 AM EDT
[#39]
I had forgotten about my Great Uncle.
From what my mother said, he was gassed in the war. I never saw him that much, but the guy was definitely old enough to have been there. I think he also served with the Italians. |
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Posted: 3/29/2024 8:24:12 AM EDT
[Last Edit: Too-Tall]
[#40]
I'm from Belgium, my greatgrandfather fought in the Ypres Salient. My grandparents had some of his stories, but not much.
I've been to many of the WW1 sites, and cemeteries. My fascination with history started pretty much after visiting Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres.  One of the more solemn places you can go is the "Menin Gate". It's a memorial to the missing in the Belgian town of Ypres. Every evening at 8pm the local Police stop all traffic, and the buglers play the Last Post. Everyone can attend, there are frequent ceremonies. They have been doing it since the 1920's. I've been there many times. Everything in the town just stops, every evening, at 8.  The Last Post at the Menin Gate Memorial (360)  Ypres Then and Now: The Last Post I participated in several ceremonies in 2018, at the First World War Centenery. Was awarded this plaque.  To fully understand the horrors of the First World War, you need to visit Verdun and Fort Douamont. I was there, lots of pictures HERE |
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OR, USA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 12:36:06 PM EDT
[#41]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By Too-Tall: I'm from Belgium, my greatgrandfather fought in the Ypres Salient. My grandparents had some of his stories, but not much. I've been to many of the WW1 sites, and cemeteries. My fascination with history started pretty much after visiting Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres. https://i.ibb.co/Tvd3SC2/Tynecot5.jpg One of the more solemn places you can go is the "Menin Gate". It's a memorial to the missing in the Belgian town of Ypres. Every evening at 8pm the local Police stop all traffic, and the buglers play the Last Post. Everyone can attend, there are frequent ceremonies. They have been doing it since the 1920's. I've been there many times. Everything in the town just stops, every evening, at 8.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO0XzauTgms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUWe5x0Duj4I participated in several ceremonies in 2018, at the First World War Centenery. Was awarded this plaque. https://i.ibb.co/RNWkg51/IMG-6149.jpg To fully understand the horrors of the First World War, you need to visit Verdun and Fort Douamont. I was there, lots of pictures HERE I checked out your posts about the battles and have been doing some more reading. And it’s got me thinking. While the trench warfare currently happening in the Ukraine has got to suck and take a toll on a guys nerves it has got to pale in comparison to WWI. Drones dropping hand-grenades are a far cry from sitting in your trench while 2000 he shells are dropped on every 3’x3’ square of earth. The amount of ordinance expended is mind blowing. |
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Posted: 3/29/2024 1:07:15 PM EDT
[#42]
My wife's grandfather. He never made it overseas thought. He died after we had been married a couple years. They had a picture in their living room of him in his uniform.
I did know a guy that had been born a slave not long before the war ended. This was in the early '60. He was a friend of my grandparents. |
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Posted: 3/29/2024 1:29:00 PM EDT
[#43]
Yes….my grandfather. Also, in 4th grade, I met an old Indian man who was in a wheelchair.
Related to my home room teacher. He was a water boy during the civil war. I was 10 at the time. |
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ITA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 1:51:52 PM EDT
[#44]
My grandfather, class of 1899. My father was Born in his 40's and i was Born in my father's 40s.
He was One of the "Boys of '99", drafted to fight in 1917. I have a few Memories tho, i have his military merit cross (given to the whole '99 class) and the other award given in 1968 to every merit cross recipient hanging on a Wall. |
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:06:11 PM EDT
[#45]
I’m just shy of 40. I have not knowingly met a WW1 vet.
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:14:06 PM EDT
[#46]
My grandfather was infantry in WWI. I never met him though. He died in 1943.
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:23:05 PM EDT
[#47]
Met a few when I was a kid in the 1960's.
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:24:03 PM EDT
[Last Edit: MarkNH]
[#48]
I was born in England in 1972, many males over the age of 75 at that time were WW1 vets.
A great-granduncle of mine, Charles Atkins was killed on November 7th 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres. He was a Lance Corporal in the Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, 2nd Battalion. The regiment started the day with 10 officers and 402 other ranks and ended the day with 3 officers (2 Lt, 1 Cpt) and 311 men. 25% casualties in one attack to capture a small section of trench and 3 machine guns. He was 37 and before the war had worked as an Optician's assistant, he had a wife but no children. The Regiment had arrived in France on October 7th with 30 officers and 988 other ranks, they first saw combat on the 18th so 90% officer and 70% other ranks casualties in under 3 weeks.     
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TX, USA
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:25:00 PM EDT
[#49]
My barber back when I was in school was a WW1 veteran. He had joined the Navy at age 16, where he learned to cut hair and did it for the next 60+ years.
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Posted: 3/29/2024 2:32:13 PM EDT
[#50]
Yes- aerial gunner- the back seat rider with a Lewis gun
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