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Lee Wilkinson

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How will we remember those last remaining people who lived through World War Two? As soon they will be gone

It was only within the last year that the last remaining person to have been alive in World War One passed away. Within the next twenty years the remaining populous of those who lived through World War Two will also all but have vanished. How will we remember them? What lessons will we learn from their lives and their struggles? Will it simply become a part of history which is a dim memory to those of us who learned of it from our parents. will we forget the lessons which showed the best and worst side of the human nature? How much do we owe them?

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  • Edwin Alberts

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    Feb 24 2011: We now have the opportunity to really get someperspective of what really happened durring the war. I've heard stories, from my dad (5th Air Force), about the brutality in the pacific. I've talked to men who served in Europe, with the 29th Division, and Darby's Rangers. If these stories, and remember, they would be stories, colored by time, edited by memory (good and bad), could be collected and presented as a diary, used to illustrate what happened, to the men, their families and the countries involved.
    We need to teach the next generations that there were people who put their lives on the line, some came back, come came back physically, but left a part of themselves 'over there', and some are still there, in marked and unmarked graves. The important part for me is that we teach what went on, truthfully told, no embellishments, just the facts, no editorlialism.
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      Lee Wilkinson 20+

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      Feb 24 2011: I work at a private school and at Christmas the school priest holds a Christmas Party for the senior citizens in town. I volunteered to collect some of them one year and it was as though they have never left. The first thing they began talking about was the war. Some funny stories some observations of how the town of Hertford was in their day, some sad. The thing which struck me though was that this event was as clear to them now as it was 60 years ago. It had such an impact on them they will never be able to forget it.

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