the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month....when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, bringing an official end to WWI, the "Great War" or the "War to end all wars". The last American veteran of WWI died recently. In West Virginia, I believe.
WWII vets are 'going west' at a a very rapid rate as well. I once worked with a veteran of WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam, Master Sergeant Connant. He always drank for free in the NCO Club. Man, he had some stories to tell.....he's gone now.
Shipped over to France about 6 weeks after D-Day and was part of Patton's breakout, driving a Sheridan tank. He was still 19 that November when, the day before his 20th birthday he was in a vicious fire-fight. The guys on either side of him were killed and he recalls thinking, "I'm not going to live to see 20." He was also among those to liberate the Dachau camp and still has German shrapnel in his leg. The young men and women who are in Iraq and Afghanistan today are just as brave.
The Sheridan Tank was not introduced until the 1960's...perhaps you meant a Sherman tank? It was the workhorse of Patton's 3rd Army? Or maybe your father-in-law drove a Sheridan in Vietnam and is just a little confused?
http://www.military-today.com/tanks/m551_sheridan.htm
My father-in-law may be in his late 80s but he's not confused.
I meant no disrespect. I hope your father-in-law lives on to share his stories with your family for mny years to come.
My father-in-law refused to talk about the war until very recently. He wouldn't even go to see "Saving Private Ryan" out of fear it would trigger a PTS episode. I'm one of the very few he'll talk to about it and he has great stories. Once he and his crew were plundering a wine cellar in Germany and got lost, blundering around the countryside with cases of wine strapped to the tank. My Dad was stateside during the war, in the Ordnance Corps, and drove a Stuart at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. So he and my father-in-law would talk about how it was to drive.
When my Dad died he left me a Colt model 1911 and I gave it to my father-in-law. He'd carried one just like it during the war.
"The young men and women who are in Iraq and Afghanistan today are just as brave".
No doubt about that at all.