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What should one ask a living WW1 veteran?
11\11/01 | Freeplancer

Posted on 11/12/2001 6:46:39 PM PST by freeplancer

At the end of this week, I will be arriving home in my hometown in Illinois. Believe it or not, there is a friend of the family who is a true veteran of WW1 and he still has all of his faculties. I am going to interview him for a documentary, but I would really like to hear what some other people would be curious about. If anyone has any "non-humorous" questions or ideas that would aid me in what could be my last chance to ever have a sit-down with a "Dough Boy" (infantry) from WW1, I would really appreciate it.

Also, I wonder how one could find out just how many of these crusty vets are left alive?

I will post a report when I return home.


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To: freeplancer
What are your thoughts on televison and the way it has grown and changed since you first viewed it?

Boon or bust for the country and the war?

Eaker

PS: Good luck and God-Speed. This man has seen us from horses to the moon!!

41 posted on 11/12/2001 7:33:29 PM PST by Eaker
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To: freeplancer
1) What 3-5 things about the U.S. since has left you feeling most glad you made your WWI sacrifices?

2) What 3-5 things about the U.S. in the last 5 years has made you feel least glad you made your WWI sacrifices?

3) What 3-5 things do you believe youth most need to be taught or taught better these days?

4) What are your 3-5 greatest concerns for the U.S. compared to the one you knew WWI era?

5) What would be the first 12 things you would do if you were President of the U.S. now?

6) What do you believe would be the 3-5 most effective ways to counter the most destructive forces in the U.S. currently?

7) What 3-5 characteristics, traits, habits do you feel are most different from soldier age adults nowadays compared to your colleagues in WWI?

8) What 3-5 most major changes do you most expect will occur in the U.S. in the next 5 years?

9) What 2-3 things about modern life most shock you or have most shocked you?

10) What 3-5 things about life in the U.S. have most renewed your hope?

11) What do you think of globalism?

12) What do you think of the Clintons?

42 posted on 11/12/2001 7:34:51 PM PST by Quix
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To: freeplancer
What can I do for you SIR? Best question by far!!!!

Many years ago I was working in an ER and two ambulances pulled up. One contained a baby born enroute the other a 103 yr. old women with a cut. (Her skin was almost transparent!) We took alot of pictures. We talked about what it was like to be a teacher in a one room school house.

I would ask him about how the younger generation at the time felt about things. How did they feel about the war, their government, their parents? How did their music make them feel? What did they do for fun? I would try to figure out have attitudes changed and if so how much.

What a great opportunity!! My grandparents died before I had a chance to talk to them.
43 posted on 11/12/2001 7:37:29 PM PST by lizma
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To: freeplancer
Q.What should one ask a living WW1 veteran?

A.Do you know Jesus?

44 posted on 11/12/2001 7:39:30 PM PST by VaBthang4
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To: freeplancer
A) Them French girls, eh? Oooh la la? Know what I mean? Know what I mean?

B) How did ya keep 'em down on the farm after they'd seen Paree?

C) If a tank is leaving Ypres at 3 miles per hour and another tank is leaving Amiens at 4 miles per hour, and their both going in the same direction, which crew will die first?

D) Behind the laughter: Fatty Arbuckle, what went wrong?

E) Is this your good ear?

F) You don't still have that gas mask around somewhere?

G) That German prisoner you let live, they didn't tell you it was HITLER, did they?

45 posted on 11/12/2001 7:40:31 PM PST by x
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To: Shooter 2.5
My wife used to home health a lot of old people

How blithely you blather.

46 posted on 11/12/2001 7:41:19 PM PST by Old Professer
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To: freeplancer
Yeah...ask him if the military ever blamed a flock of monarch butterflies for a downed aircraft in the middle of

the war with bullets flying and bombs bursting...

or how often an engine just fell off an airplane during combat.

Ask him THAT.

47 posted on 11/12/2001 7:42:41 PM PST by Office Manager
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Comment #48 Removed by Moderator

To: freeplancer
Just ask him if he wants to dance.
49 posted on 11/12/2001 7:44:28 PM PST by Old Professer
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To: Balding_Eagle
With all due respect, my question came from introspection today. I'm Nam era, additionaly I've never ever met ANY combat survivor of any side that didn't have a lust for avoiding combat horrors ever again......not for me, us, my kids, their kids, anyone.
You're probably correct about the inevitability, but I still ask God "why?"
50 posted on 11/12/2001 7:47:40 PM PST by KirklandJunction
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To: KirklandJunction
Why? Sin, which is why I said we would always have wars, but then you knew that too.

As you can tell from my screen name, I'm Vietnam era too.

51 posted on 11/12/2001 7:59:00 PM PST by Balding_Eagle
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Comment #53 Removed by Moderator

To: freeplancer
FREEP, you are blessed to be able to interview a WW-I vet. There are so few left, and they are so frail. Ask him how it was, and be gentle, and be his friend in a real sense. Even after all these years, they still need to talk about it, and they still need someone to listen to them, and understand what they went through!

I interviewed my Mothers' Father, my Grandfather, James Clegg, in 1957, to get his recollections of WW-I on audiotape. He was the crustiest-old curmudgeon that I'd ever met, but I knew he loved me. When I asked him what it was like in WW-I, he teared-up, and choked-up, and remarked, and these are his words: "We were cannon-fodder, Barry! They sent us up to fight and die, and most died!"

I also had the honour of sitting with another WW-I veteran at a VFW hall in Little Rock in 1988. We talked for four hours, and my date left, and I never got laid, but the old-guy thanked me for listening.

I never missed getting laid that time....FRegards

54 posted on 11/12/2001 8:08:36 PM PST by gonzo
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To: freeplancer
Ask him about how the Red Cross helped him in the war. Then the same question about the Salvation army. I have heard several stories from the children of WWI vets about how the vets didn't like the Red Cross that much becaue they charged the troops for care packages and the Salvation Army did not.
55 posted on 11/12/2001 8:11:21 PM PST by Texas_Jarhead
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To: freeplancer
Maybe ask him if he knew of Ronald Reagan in his Dixon, IL, days,
and what he thought of him as Reagan's life unfolded over his lifetime.
56 posted on 11/12/2001 8:17:52 PM PST by Lee Stetson
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To: freeplancer
Ask him to tell you what it was like growing up on a farm or in a small town at the begnning of the last century.

Ask him to tell you about the mood of the time. Why did he go off to war? What did his friends and family think?

What was basic training like?

How did he get to Europe? Form where did he embark? Where did he disembark?

How did he get to the lines?

What was daily life like?

How did they amuse themselves?

What did he eat?

What was the weather like?

Did he see combat?

What did that look like?

Was he in the trenches?

What did they look like?

How far away were the Germans?

What did it sound like?

What did it smell like?

Ask him to tell you about his friends. Where they were from? What they did together?

How did the French people treat him and his comrades?

Let him paint a verbal picture and tape record everything if you can.

57 posted on 11/12/2001 8:26:03 PM PST by hc87
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To: freeplancer
A couple of questions I can think of:

Considering the many new strategies and weapons introduced in the Great War, did the soldiers at the time, particularly any French soldiers he may have encountered, have any idea how radically the very nature of war was changing before their very eyes?

Also, the Great War was in many ways the pinnacle of the ushering in of 20th century ideas of nationalism, statism, progressivism and socialism. Does he think we've moved beyond that now, and have entered a new post-nationalist Golden Age, or are we just in a bit of a lull?

I, too, envy your opportunity to speak with a veteran of the "war to end all wars." I am sure I speak for practically everyone who would wish for you to also express our thanks for his service in that tragic time.

58 posted on 11/12/2001 8:32:25 PM PST by B Knotts
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To: freeplancer
Ask him if he prefers beer or whiskey.

Have the bartender give him what he wants, then send me the tab.

59 posted on 11/12/2001 8:37:32 PM PST by The KG9 Kid
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To: Sabertooth
bump
60 posted on 11/12/2001 8:38:26 PM PST by vikingchick
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