By Al Jazeera English, May 5, 2011
A significant chapter in military history has ended with the death of the last combat veteran from World War I.
Claude ‘Chuckles’ Choules, the last-known male survivor out of more than 70 million military personnel who fought in the conflict, died in Australia on Thursday at the age of 110.
Choules always said his secret to long life was his family and despite 41 years of service, he was vehemently opposed to war, which he called “a stupid waste of time and energy”.
“Old men planned them,” he said, “but young men had to fight them”.
The great-great grandfather died two months after his 110th birthday, severing our last living link to the carnage of the 1914-18 war.
Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner reports.