You did not know them and it’s possible you have never heard their names. However, Lazare Ponticelli, Gladys Powers, Howard Ramsey, and William Stone knew you before you were even born.

They did not know your face nor did they know the name you would come to have. In fact, it was impossible that they should ever meet you. Still, close to 95 years ago, they knew the life they wanted you to have. The life you live today.

At some point, they made a conscious decision and went to war to fight for your freedoms. Joining the ranks of millions of brave men and women, they were ready to lay down their lives for yours in the First World War. Many were just barely teenagers, but they are gone now and only a handful remain.

In March of 2008, Frenchman Lazare Ponticelli passed away at the age of 110. He outlived all 8.4 million citizens of his country who fought alongside him. At almost 109, in 2007, Howard Ramsey was the last surviving U.S. combat veteran, and he too passed on.

A Canadian, and the world’s last female veteran, Gladys Powers, died this past August. She was 109 and had lied about her age, enlisting at only 15. In Britain, in January of this year, William Stone, the last Royal Serviceman from WWI died. He also was 109 years of age.

Before World War II, World War I was known as the Great War, simply owing to the absence of something in modern history to which it could compare. This battle raged for five years with over 100 countries involved in the conflict.

Encyclopaedia Britannica estimates a total of 9,750,103 military casualties in the First World War alone from among an estimated participation of 65,038,810 military personnel worldwide. 

We are now at a point in time where those who lived and trudged through those days of valor, honor, death, and suffering are fading away into the pages of history from which they came.

While there are a few web sites containing the names of surviving World War veterans, there is a comprehensive list of names for each country of service. Of course, these names are merely a representation of the millions and millions who fought in these battles.

While there will always be documentaries, movies and books, it is the firsthand experience that can never be replaced. In their passing, stories from the front lines, the trenches, the battlefields, and the medical zones become just that — stories.

A television screen is two-dimensional. A person is anything but. When you look at a veteran, the tangibility of their physical appearance — everything from the wrinkles on their face to the certainty of emotion in their voice — you cannot help but feel the power of their sacrifice.

But the list of these survivors, though short to begin with, only wanes as time moves on. And with the passing of these men and women, that tangible and important link to the past becomes weakened.

While this was inevitable, I cannot help feeling that there is now a disconnect with these major occurrences of the past. Even the World Wars could not stop future wars, but who now will stand to remind us? It is only too easy in today’s technologically gadgeted world to forget.

World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. But it did not. Twenty years later, along came World War II.

Right now the battle front is in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of us are lucky that we don’t often have to think of this — a passing statistic or headline the only reminder. For others, with friends and family in those very real and dangerous situations, it is a reality of everyday.

From 1914-1919 and from 1939-1945 and the years that followed, that reality was unforgettable. Only one day in November are we explicitly reminded of this and other military sacrifices, that being Veteran’s Day. And on this important occasion we pay homage to our men and women of service in remembrance.

I do not support war and I do not promote it. I do however, support our troops, regardless of nationality. They have and continue to protect the world in which we all live. And theirs is a sacrifice unlike any that most of us will ever have to face — made so that people like you and I are free to live the lives we choose.

 — Erin Mastre is a graduate student in landscape architecture from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.