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| World War I A place to discuss the Great War(WWI) |
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03-14-2008, 11:45 PM
| #1 | |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Orange County, CA
Posts: 10,812
| France bids adieu as its last Great War hero is honoured Quote:
By James Mackenzie THE last surviving veteran of the First World War living in France, an Italian immigrant who fought in the trenches with the Foreign Legion, has died at the age of 110. Lazare Ponticelli, who joined his adopted country's army as a 16-year-old at the outbreak of the war with Germany in 1914, had attended a memorial ceremony as recently as November 2007. Following the death of 110-year-old Louis de Cazenave in January, Ponticelli was the last of the poilus (hairy ones), the nickname given to the unshaven troops who embodied French defiance in one of the bloodiest wars in the country's history. Ponticelli, who described war as "idiotic", had initially refused an offer of a state funeral made by the former president, Jacques Chirac, as it would be an insult to the men who had died without commemoration. He relented after Cazenave's death, saying he would accept a simple ceremony "in homage to my comrades". President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to Ponticelli and said a national commemoration of all of France's participants in the war would be held in the coming days. "I express today the profound emotion and infinite sadness of the whole of the nation at the death of Lazare Ponticelli, last survivor of the French combatants of the First World War," he said in a statement. Ponticelli's death severs the last living link with a conflict whose traces can still be seen on war memorials in nearly every town and village in France. In a war fought largely on their home soil, about 8.4 million French soldiers served and about 1.3 million were killed. Ninety years later, the Great War poilu in his sky-blue uniform still occupies a special place in the French imagination and Ponticelli's death led yesterday's news bulletins. Ponticelli was born into a poor family on 7 December, 1897, in the northern Italian town of Bettola and came to France as a 9-year-old, walking part of the way to save money. He worked as a chimney sweep and newspaper boy before enlisting in the Foreign Legion when war broke out, saying later it was "a way of thanking" the country that had fed him. The Times March 13, 2008
__________________ "Pilot to copilot..... what are those mountain goats doing up here in the clouds?" | |
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03-15-2008, 06:33 AM
| #2 |
| The Pop-Tart Whisperer   Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: South Jersey, United States
Posts: 11,829
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__________________  "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it's English, thank a soldier!"  |
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03-15-2008, 07:06 AM
| #3 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Jersey Shore
Posts: 3,533
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__________________  “Let's get Enterprise and Hornet turned into the wind." |
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03-15-2008, 07:22 AM
| #4 |
| "Shooter"   Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Moorpark, CA
Posts: 15,421
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__________________   For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. Leonardo Da Vinci |
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03-15-2008, 08:16 AM
| #5 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Adelaide Sth. Aust.
Posts: 14,820
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03-15-2008, 08:35 AM
| #6 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Jacksonville, NC
Posts: 3,562
| I met a WWI vet in Vermont at a state veterans clinic back in 2004. He told me he was in the cavalry - the real cavalry not the "p***y air or mech cavalry!
__________________ If the Army and the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines  |
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03-15-2008, 10:42 AM
| #7 |
| "Shooter" Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Moorpark, CA
Posts: 15,421
| Hard to imagine riding a horse into battle these days, isn't it?
__________________ For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return. Leonardo Da Vinci |
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03-15-2008, 12:03 PM
| #8 |
| Member  Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Nantes
Posts: 93
| We mustn't forget their story because it's also ours. Good bye and thank you Mr Ponticelli. |
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03-16-2008, 04:18 AM
| #9 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Cracow
Posts: 4,436
| Au revoir....
__________________  "A good fighter pilot, like a good boxer, should have a knockout punch..... You will find one attack you prefer to all others. Work on it till you can do it to perfection... then use it whenever possible." - Captain Reade Tilley, USAAF 7 Victories, WW-II - |
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03-16-2008, 09:45 AM
| #10 |
| Der Crewchief  Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Ansbach, Germany
Posts: 34,079
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__________________  fly boy:"isnt that the first jet bomber becasue i have flown one in a flight sim before and i know how it handles" |
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03-17-2008, 04:01 AM
| #11 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 3,851
| Au revoir, M.Ponticelli. Merci, Rest well. |
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03-17-2008, 11:32 AM
| #12 |
| Siggy Master  Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Poland
Posts: 15,998
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04-01-2008, 03:20 AM
| #13 |
| Senior Member  Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Colorado, USA
Posts: 1,896
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__________________  "His motor's conked out!" "What's the differance, they're all Nazis!" "Luke, shut up!" "Fear the hook!" "Oh.....I wanna fly." "You mean the kind that go under water and fly up the stairs?" "What you doing? Oh Nooooo!" |
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