November 11, 2021
Our Veterans Day falls on what used to be called Armistice Day. On that day in 1918, the major fighting of World War I ended.
My grandfather fought in France in WWI, but when I think of that horrific, interminable conflict, and all that it says about war, I think not of him, but of George Lawrence Price.
In 1918, Price was a private serving with Company A of the 28th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Belgium. Along with all the other exhausted soldiers, Price had heard that their leaders had negotiated for the guns in Europe to fall silent once and for all on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. The soldiers hardly dared to hope the peace would really come to pass.
As the moment of the armistice approached, a few soldiers continued to skirmish, and Price's company set out to take control of the small town of Havre. As they crossed a canal to their target, a German gunner hidden in a row of houses tried to stop them. Once safely across, just ten minutes before the armistice, the Canadian patrol began to look for the German soldier who had harassed them. They found no one but civilians in the first two homes they searched. And then, as they stepped back into the street, a single shot hit Price in the chest. He fell into the arms of his comrade, who pulled him back into the house they had just left. As Price died, German soldiers cleared their guns in a last burst of machine-gun fire that greeted the armistice.
Price’s life ended just two minutes before the Great War was over.
Even at the time, Price’s death seemed to symbolize the pointless slaughter of WWI. When an irony of history put Price in the same cemetery as the first Allied soldier to die in the conflict, disgusted observers commented that the war had apparently been fought over a half-mile of land. In the years after the war ended, much was made of George Price, the last soldier to die in the Great War.
But ever since I learned Price’s story, I have been haunted by the unknown story of the German sniper who killed him. What made that man take that one last life, two minutes before the war ended? Was it rage? Fear? Had the war numbed him into a machine that simply did its job? Or was it a final, deadly act of revenge against a world that had changed beyond his reckoning?
And what did the knowledge that he had stolen another man’s future—legally, but surely immorally—do to the man who pulled that trigger? He went back to civilian life and blended into postwar society, although the publicity given to Price's death meant that he must have known he was the one who had taken that last, famous life in the international conflagration. The shooter never acknowledged what he had done, or why.
Price became for the world a heartbreaking symbol of hatred’s sheer waste. But the shooter? He simply faded into anonymity, becoming the evil that men do.
My dad was in college at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, according to family myths, he went and had many long talks with his advisor- a monk from the college- about whether to enlist in the military.
Dad was a truly devout Catholic, a first generation American and an only son. He knew that killing was wrong and wished to become a conscientious objector should he be drafted. He felt that staying here to help his parents was truly important as his mom, my grandmother, was in frail health from her diabetes.
Brother Vincent had a different idea. Enlist in the Army and go to officer’s training school. That would give dad some choice in where the army would place him and what he would do while in it. Dad took months to make the decision but in the end, joined and went to officer’s training school and became a supply officer.
While stationed in England, dad led a platoon of mostly African Americans. While in North Africa, he led both African Americans and locals. He had a way of inspiring hard work and his guys appreciated the fairness he offered them. He always spoke with great pride of those with whom he served
My dad often bragged that his proudest achievement in WWII was that he never had to fire his gun at someone; that he never killed anyone. He was able to stay true to his belief that taking a life was immoral. Sadly, the truth was it didn’t matter.
My dad died 39 years ago this week. He was in a car accident, broke a bone in his neck, and lapsed into a coma. He never emerged and died in his hospital bed at the VA in Minneapolis. What killed him though was alcoholism and the memory of the horrors of what he saw in WWII. War ended his life just as surely as the bullet ended Price’s life in WWI.
I was thinking about Paul Gosar’s horrific anime’ stunt this week glorifying symbolically killing AOC and President Biden. It seems like we have elected a group of truly pathological nutcases who are trying, very hard, to lead us into civil war. What’s a conscientious objector to do? Good question.
- Bobbie O'Million lived above me in a three flat building. We became friends due to our proximity. A year later he moved to Highland Park, IL before it became fashionable to live there. I would spend weekends out there and we would explore the various areas that are built up now. Bobbie was older than I, graduated high school and enlisted in the Army.
It was less than a year later, we heard from his mother that he had been killed in a head-on accident when a drunk driver of a car hit their van. Six young men were in the van being driven by their Sergeant First Class (a father with 4 children). Bobbie was the only one I got to see (at his funeral) of the ones I knew from that era who died.
- Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together at the age of 13-14 years old. We spent the years together camping in various spots in the Midwest. Did other things together outside of Boy Scouts. It was just a fun time. We started to go our own ways when we were in the later years of high school I in an all boys high school in Chicago and he in a mixed high school. In 66 he graduated and I in January 67.
We both kicked around for a while working and then enlisting. He went into the Army before I did the Marines. After Boot Camp I was home for a bit before being reassigned. In the news one evening I saw Paul's father raging against the draft dodgers because Paul had died after stepping on a mine.
- Tim Gilson and I became quick friends in Boot Camp. We just kind of bonded. He taught me some things from when he was in ROTC which helped me get through it all. We both graduated and went on to ITR up in Pendleton. He was in an infantry company whose next stop was Vietnam. I went off to another type of company which consisted of the backers, cooks, and candle stick makers as they called us. I rained at an Army Base in Red Bank, NJ to become a Crypto - Tech. in 68.
I never knew what happened to Tim. He was not at his home in Moose Heart and neither was his family. I lost track of him and was afraid to look other places for him. My oldest went on a trip to Washington D.C. I asked Eric if he was at the Wall if he would sketch a few names for me of the people I knew. Tim came back with that bunch. He was head shot while with 7th Marines up north while trying to relive a platoon trapped by the NVA.
I got my row of ribbons. I was a deadly shot lobbing rounds 500 yards with few missing the target. The loss of my friends I could not stop with all of my abilities. I miss them. It is not a day I celebrate, it is not a day I take advantage of free food, I cringe at being thanked for my service. I do not like to be exalted in any manner. This is something I did to myself and learned from it.
I am older as you might have guessed and I wonder what it would be like if they were still around. Its 4 AM in AZ. My wife and I are moving into our new home in spite of the bungling builders. My children are grown and successful. My memories are fainter than when I was young. And I wonder what could have been. It is good to remember but it is far better to think of what could have been.