Throughout history, up to the second half of the last century war was total. If we look at the slaughter of Crecy, and Agincourt, or Austerlitz and Waterloo the carnage was only governed by man’s technological ability to kill. Over the centuries that technological ability has improved as has our ability as wariors.
The U.S. civil war brought a glimpse of what was to come. Accurate and more technologically advanced artillary and the riffled barrel increased casualties exponencially, but few took note. By 1914 the world had the machine guns, accurate artillary, rifles, and poison gas. By 1916 affective aircraft. The world had never seen the number of troops engaged at close range with modern weaponry as it did at Verdun, and latter the Somme. France technically won the battle of Verdun in 1916 only because it still held the ground. Each side lost over 300,000 men. By 1917 French casualties exceeded 1 million. The total male population of France at the time was 20 million. By the end of the war France would lose just under 5% of it’s total population to military deaths and Germany just under 4%. The war would cost 37 million lives and thanks to the wonderful work done in 1919 at Versailles only lead to a worldwide depression and an even bigger war a generation later.
Today is the aniversery of the end of that war. Approximatly 116,000 American wariors never returned home from it. We owe our thanks to those men and women and all those before and after who “gave their last full measure” so we can be free.
Over the last 100 years we became very good wariors. I hope for my kids sake, the next 100 years we will become very good statesmen. Maybe someday our warriors will all die of old age. But…untill then we must settle for the best technology and peace through superior firepower.

I hope that we will treat each person as an individuals, rather than lump them together. I think that is the point of America. I wrote about that concerning our schools: we are a nation that promotes individualism. We should then look at each person for his or her unique set of attributes rather than where his grandmother came from.

Jim

The last American vet is still alive (as of 10 Aug):
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/fredbrown/2009/08/frank_buckles_the_last_of_the.html

And there is a Canadian, Aussie, and a Polish vet that I know of, but can’t confirm.

BG

Good post!