A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Florence Green, 1901-2012: Last of the 65 Million

Florence Green, who died February 4 at the age of 110, a couple of weeks short of her 111th birthday, never had any connection with the Middle East that I'm aware of, but she's been mentioned more than once on this blog before.

Yakup Satar
Though she didn't serve in combat, she was the last remaining verified veteran of the Great War of 1914-1918. Of an estimated 65 million of many nationalities who served, all are gone now. The doughboys, the Tommies, the  poilus  who struggled in the trenches, and all those of all nationalities who served on all the fronts, land, sea, and air, are memories.

So again, to give this post a Middle East connection, I salute her by showing a salute from one of those who chanced to be on the other side in that war: the last mehmetchik, the last Ottoman soldier, Yakup Satar. He was also 110 when he died, in 2008.

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