world war i

Chris Knight's avatar

Lots of crazy stuff in the news this past week.  I’ve been sharing them with friends on Facebook, where they have engendered no small amount of mirth and merriment.  So I thought I’d post about them here too!

First up is this recall notice about a brand of honey that is being pulled off the shelves because somehow, somewhere along the manufacturing process, an active ingredient in erectile dysfunction medication made it into the finished product.
Next up is a story from Colorado about a man who is suing Walmart after claiming to be severely injured.  The man apparently bought raw bake-to-eat sourdough bread without first warming it up in an oven.  The bread expanded inside his stomach and allegedly brought on immense pain and suffering.
I saw that in an old episode of Emergency! awhile back.  Johnny and Roy got called to help a guy who ate unbaked
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Well, that’s a pretty bold assessment to make considering that 2018 has been a year that I haven’t seen many movies during initial release in a cinema.  And where something like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War are usually films that I’d see multiple times during their theatrical run, I only caught those once each.  And lately my schedule has become packed with a lot of activity: various projects and whatnot.

That being said, two months ago the sense hit that They Shall Not Grow Old was going to be an experience unlike any other in recent memory.  And that sense was proven just.  Only two movies before had ever left me feeling so impacted and affected as the credits rolled: 1993’s Schindler’s List and then The Passion Of The Christ eleven years later.
But as emotionally overwhelming as those two films are, neither can boast a
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Yesterday on this blog we remembered the one hundredth anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide.  One day after that came another historic event of World War I, also happening to be associated with Turkey.

It was on April 25th, 1915, that Great Britain along with most of her Commonwealth nations (Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, and India) as well as France launched what is arguably one of the most ambitious operations of twentieth century warfare: the Gallipoli Campaign.

British infantry land on Lemnos during the Battle of Gallipoli

The Gallipoli offensive had as its goal the securing of the Dardanelles between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, which would have given Russia a sea route to its allies.  But the British and French figured that they’d do better than that… by capturing the Ottoman capital of Istanbul.  The amphibious assault landed on two beaches of the ...

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They had been ridiculed and spat upon for hundreds of years.  The ultra-nationalists in power launched dehumanizing propaganda against them.  Their semblance of official protection had been stripped away and made them relegated to a class of life undeserving of life.  Their property was confiscated.  And in the end they were beaten and butchered and starved and raped and shot and crucified and whoever was left were herded onto railroad cars to be sent off to concentration camps stretching from border to border.

And it took place nearly thirty years before the Nazis implement their “final solution”.  But it was not a Germany frenzied by the mad ravings of a failed artist, or any other European nation.  It was instead the Ottoman Empire.  The time was World War I.  And the target for extermination was Armenian Christians as well as many other minorities that did not fit the criteria of ...

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Old historical photos hold a special fascination for me.  So I find this next couple of items positively amazing…

Peter Mackintosh
Photo Credit: Joseph Bauman

On the right is a picture of Peter Mackintosh, taken sometime after the early 1840s.  Mackintosh was 16 years old and an apprentice blacksmith in Boston when he watched as a gang of young men barged into his shop, smeared ashes from the hearth all over their faces, and then just as quickly stormed out of the place.  Mackintosh later discovered that they were part of a mob on their way to Griffin’s Wharf to throw boxes and barrels of British-taxed tea into Boston Harbor.

That was on December 16th, 1773.  And the teenaged Peter Mackintosh had witnessed the first moments of the Boston Tea Party.

Later on Mackintosh served in the Continental Army, shoeing horses and repairing cannons.

Mackintosh lived long enough for ...

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Adrian Carton de Wiart
Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
having a jolly good time!

Twitter user Matthew Barrett found what must be “the best opening paragraph of any Wikipedia biography ever”.  It’s the entry for Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart, an officer in the British Army who served in three wars.

From the Wikipedia entry…

Lieutenant-General Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO (5 May 1880 – 5 June 1963), was a British Army officer of Belgian and Irish descent. He fought in the Boer War, World War I, and World War II, was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear, survived a plane crash, tunneled out of a POW camp, and bit off his own fingers when a doctor wouldn’t amputate them. He later said “frankly I had enjoyed the war.”

This guy was in the Boer War, World War I and World ...

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It happened a week ago, and I am somewhat ashamed of myself that I did not catch this at the time.

Now’s the time to make things right by remembering this fine lady…

Florence Green died on February 4th, at the age of 110. She would have been 111 later this month.

And she was the very last living person who served during World War I.

Born on February 19th 1901, Florence was 17 when she enlisted in the Women’s Royal Air Force in September of 1918: just two months shy of the armistice that ended “the war to end all wars”.

The last living combat veteran, Claude Choules, passed away in May of last year. And it was a year ago this month that Frank Buckles, the last surviving American “doughboy”, departed us.

Read more about Florence Green’s long and remarkable life here....

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Do you want to know why Veterans Day is on this date?

It was November the 11th, 1918, at the 11th hour, that the armistice took effect and the guns of the Western Front fell silent.

World War I, the Great War, the “war to end all wars”, had drawn to a close.

Veterans Day – a day which has come to honor all American veterans – was originally a day set aside to honor the service of the millions of soldiers from the United States who went “Over There” to fight in the trenches of Europe.

And this Veterans Day is the first that we have ever had without even one of those brave men and women among us…

Frank Buckles, the last surviving “doughboy”, passed away in February of this year. He was 110 years old.

They are all gone now.

May we never forget them....

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            In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

                    — Lieutenant Colonel John McRae,
                        Canadian Army
                        written near Ypres, Belgium
                        May 3, 1915
The dawn of this day will see the Great War
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