Posted on 05/25/2003 2:50:10 PM PDT by Drew68
Deep within government computers, amid lists and statistics of millions of military veterans, a single name recently slipped quietly away.
Confidentiality rules protected the name. Nothing protected the history behind it.
Sometime in February, the last Colorado World War I veteran receiving military benefits died.
It's a milestone that officials knew was coming - the Department of Veterans Affairs says fewer than 500 U.S. veterans of World War I remain alive; their average age is 101. Still, officials stress that the loss doesn't necessarily mean that the last Colorado veteran of the war is gone - not all veterans signed up to receive benefits, so there may still be someone in the state to come forward with the last of the war's memories.
If the state still has a living veteran of the war, however, nobody in the government or major veterans organizations appears to know where that person is.
Calls to dozens of Veterans of Foreign Wars posts throughout the state were met with grizzled voices that all said basically the same thing: "You're a couple of years too late." Most of the older members remember the name of the last World War I veteran to die from their individual post, but none could point to anyone who could still tell the stories in the first person.
It was a similar situation at the various Colorado State & Veterans Nursing Homes: There are a few widows registered, but no veterans. Same story at the American Legion.
All of the men from Colorado registered with the National Veterans of World War I are also dead. For the Virginia-based group's president, it's a familiar frustration.
"There's a saying about old soldiers fading away, and the World War I veterans have almost faded," said Muriel Sue Kerr, whose 45-year-old group once boasted an office in Arlington, Va., staffed by more than 20 people and membership rolls in the thousands.
"We are truly a dying organization," she said. "Now we have no office, no staff, no employees and no finances. I just kind of hold it together from a room in my house."
Each week, Kerr said, she dreads going to the post office, where she'll find another letter from one of her members marked "addressee deceased."
"It's the only way to know - unless a family member calls - and at this point, they've often outlived their wives and their children," she said. "And as far as I'm concerned, they still haven't gotten the recognition they deserved."
It's an inevitability that 39-year-old Andy Parks watched all his life, as he saw his grandfather - and dozens of the men who fought with him - fade into the textbooks. It's a history that Parks continues to struggle to keep alive.
Inside the Wings Over the Rockies Museum last week, Parks walked by cases of lifelike mannequins dressed in authentic uniforms. As he gives tours of the World War I collection, he still talks to the men - and for them.
"Here's Moe, he shot down a Fokker with his handgun," Parks said, pointing to one of the mannequins. "This guy here, Porter, used to stay at the house all the time, and here's Douglas Campbell - I could tell you exactly how he liked his martini."
As president of the nonprofit LaFayette Foundation, Parks maintains one of the largest World War I collections of its kind - a collection started by his father, James Parks, in memory of his grandfather, who flew in the war (and whose mannequin is also inside one of the cases).
Before the memories were encased in glass, Parks audiotaped many of the men. When schoolchildren come through the museum, Parks assigns each child to a specific veteran, leaving them with at least one name that he hopes will never slip away.
"By reading, by listening, you can still get into their lives," he said.
"We've lost them, but we still have their stories."
Anyone with information on living Colorado World War I veterans may call (303) 892-2561, or e-mail sheelerj@RockyMountainNews.com
I thought I'd post this as a Memorial Day remembrance.
He recalled watching the Civil War veterans marching in parade. Later, when they were too old to march, he recalled them riding in the back of open cars.
Now it's the WWII vets who are fading away.
On KFI Radio the other day, they said that some former slaves who lived to be 80 or 90 or more married very young women who are still alive today as widows of former slaves.
I believe there are a few Civil War widows around --women who were in their teens when they married elderly Civil War vets.
Rest in peace.
The last two I drove in the Veteren's Day Parade, was in 1995.
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