I thought this (http://www.startribune.com/world/140300293.html) was a cool little story...
Quote
WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Defense Ministry says a 112-year-old veteran of both World Wars has been promoted to captain.
The ministry says in a statement that Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak visited veteran Jozef Kowalski in a nursing home in Tursk, in western Poland, on Thursday and promoted him from lieutenant to captain.
Kowalski was born Feb. 2, 1900, in what is now southern Poland, but was then part of the Austrian Empire. He fought in a Polish cavalry unit formed during World War I.
The statement says Kowalski is the only survivor of Poland's victorious 1920 war against Bolshevik Russia.
It says that after 1920 he studied at a cavalry school but chose to return to his family farm.
In 1939 he returned to combat, fighting the Germans but spent most of the war a prisoner.
Wow. And on top of being 112 he fought in both world wars. I wish he wrote a book about it.
+1
Great story and a nice gesture on the part of the Polish government.
Quote from: Shelldrake on February 25, 2012, 06:41:40 AM
Great story and a nice gesture on the part of the Polish government.
Yeah man.
he lost and won in both wars. what a complicated situation this guy was in.
HA good point.
There can't be more a dozen or so WWI vets still alive, eh?
^That we know about.
I'm sure there are more tucked away in the wilds of some far flung corners of Europe. You never know...there might be an American Civil War vet living the life of a hermit at 180 somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains :)
Good lord, wouldn't that be something?
I should write a book about that. A pseudo history/biography about America's oldest vet. I would buy it.