I don't have anything profound to say about it, but this milestone shouldn't go unnoticed:
A British woman who served with the Royal Air Force for the last two months of World War I was the last known veteran of the war when she died in her sleep Saturday night. Florence Green joined the RAF at the age of 17 and died just before her 111th birthday, which would have been Feb. 19. She had been a mess steward with the air force, the BBC reported, serving in two U.K. air bases after she joined up on Sept. 13 1918.
Some of the worst wholesale destruction of people in history, and now we have no one with a memory of it. We don't learn enough from veterans while we still have them around, do we?
And it won't be that long before the World War II vets are gone:
E. Bruce Heilman, speaking at a ceremony marking the 66th year since the end of the war, noted fewer than 2 million of the 16 million men and women who served in the war are alive. They are dying at a rate of 30,000 per month, he said.
