100 years ago today

100 years ago today, "the war to end all wars" began, when the Empire of Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, by Serbian nationalists, one month earlier.

There is no one left alive who fought that war, and very few who even remember it.  And like most wars, it did not end any further conflicts.

My own connection to World War I was through one of my grandfathers.  He was an American country boy who grew up on a farm.  He got an education and went away to college as the war was raging.  At the age of 18, he joined the Army, and was in training near the University he attended.  We have in the family scrap book pictures of him outfitted as a "doughboy."  But he never went overseas to France.  The war ended on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month in 1918.

There were millions of casualties.  People said that the "Great War" was so bloody, and so many people died, were mamed, or displaced, that it would never happen again.  They were wrong.

Senseless, if you ask me.