I often joke around about certain older gents still being grumpy cause they had to turn in their Krags for those new fangled Springfields. Well Homer Anderson is damn near old enough for that to be an accurate statement.
He fought in WWI. That wasn't a typo; World War One. He was in the Balloon Corps for a while until some genius in the Army figured out they weren't that hard to shoot down & nixed the idea.
The reason I bring this up today is because it's his birthday. He's officially 107. He stopped playing golf two years ago, which was two years after he broke his hip. & how does he feel?
"When you're 107 years old, you start to feel old,' he said. 'And I'm in that age."
His memory of the war (that'd be WWI) is a bit fuzzy but he did say this:
"Most of our battles were really short,' he said. 'We were afraid we were going to get shot, but we didn't."
Now that's a concise summation.
So despite the low odds of Mr. Anderson reading this, a very happy birthday to you sir & many thanks for your service.
One complaint though: the reporter didn't even ask him if he missed his '17 Enfield. That's modern journalism for ya; just downright sloppy reporting.
Posted by Publicola at December 24, 2004 07:39 AM