Harry Patch, Britain’s last surviving WWI veteran, died Saturday. The Today Program(me) rebroadcast an older interview (mp3) yesterday, and I was struck by how Patch’s description was incredibly poetic.
People can’t–
And the younger generation
They can’t–
imagine what it was like.
I went eighty years
And I never spoke of the world war,
not even to my wife.Dirty.
Unsanitary.
Lice
down the trousers,
in your coat,
in your vest.
LiceMy 19th birthday
I was in the trenches
At Paschendale.
The most disastrous battle.When the yanks legs went over the top
the germans came up from their dugout
with a machine gun.
That was it.If two governments can’t agree,
give’em a rifle each
and let’em fight it out.
Don’t lose twenty thousand men.
It isn’t worth it[Do you think the world learned anything from the first world war?]
No.
They never learn.