I’m re-watching HBO’s outstanding Band of Brothers. I just read that Ronald Spiers died at the age of 87.

It’s wonderful to know that so many of the men who served in the War managed to live such full and complete lives. I bet very few of them thought they’d live to see the 21st century. And it’s a pity we’re now starting to lose them in droves. Within the next 20 years, they will all be gone.

At least with these veterans, we have a good record of what they did. I watched Gettysburg the other night and watched a documentary attached that showed video footage of some of the last veterans of that battle. Almost all of what we know of Gettysburg comes from the senior officers who survived (such as Chamberlain). With World War II, we’ve got a far better accounting of what the war was like for the standard soldier.