[LINK] "Jack Babcock, Canada’s Last World War I Veteran, Dies at 109"

[rfmcdonald]

When I was but a young child in the 1980s, I can remember veterans of the First World war marching in Charlottetown's Remembrance Day parade. Now this is entirely impossible; that link is gone.

Jack Babcock, who talked his way into the Canadian armed forces at 15 and almost a century later was celebrated as Canada’s last surviving veteran of World War I, has died. He was 109.

He died yesterday in Spokane, Washington, where he had lived since 1932, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. Harper said Canada “mourns the passing of the generation that asserted our independence on the world stage and established our international reputation as an unwavering champion of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

Of the millions who participated in Europe’s so-called Great War, from 1914 to 1918, Babcock lived long enough to become one of three final survivors. He was modest about the honor, pointing out that he never saw combat.

“I feel guilty because I’m not a war hero,” he told Canada’s Kingston Whig-Standard newspaper on his 109th birthday in July 2009. “I didn’t get to accomplish what I set out to do.”

After lying about his age to join the 146th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, Babcock went through training and drills and made it to England before Canadian authorities cracked down on lax age enforcement. Along with about 1,300 other underage soldiers who were not yet 19, he was transferred to a newly formed Young Soldiers Battalion in England.