Last Wounded U.S. WWI Veteran Dies at 108

[soup]

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- Alfred Pugh, the last known combat-wounded U.S. veteran of World War I, has died. He was 108, just 10 days short of his 109th birthday, when he died Wednesday.

Pugh, who often told visitors the key to a long life is "keep breathing," joined the Army in 1917 and fought in France during World War I with the 77th Infantry Division. In 1918, he was wounded during the Meusse-Argonne offensive, one of the war's bloodiest battles.

He died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Bay Pines. VA officials said he was the oldest wounded combat veteran in the United States, and one of fewer than 1,000 remaining American World War I veterans.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OBIT_WORLD_WAR_I_VET?SITE=FLNAP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

RIP

[GregW]

1. The last of the ANZACs died in 2002

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/16/1021544052449.html

;(

[hatrack]

2. This sends me all the way back to 1989

The papers and magazines that year were filled with stories about the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, and (sadly) to a lesser degree, with stories about the 50th anniversary of the beginning of World War II.

Yet strangely, you hardly saw anything about the 75th anniversary of the beginning of World War I - the single most decisive event of the century, the war that defined what the remaining 86 years would be all about. Of course, my grandpa was a WWI veteran who bore mustard gas burns until the day he died, so I guess I'm a bit partial.

But I suppose it just didn't have the - what's the word - nostalgia appeal, that's it - of a few hundred thousand people hanging out in a pasture in upstate New York. And people wonder why Americans are viewed by much of the world as historical ignoramuses.

[yellowcanine]

3. He must have been one tough sob

Getting wounded is good for you?