He's wearing the badge of the Old Contemptibles Association, and he sounds like he could still drill a squad given a chance.
So many of the veterans especially of that generation were uncommunicative; here that Irish volubility does us all a favour.
Would be nice to hear the entire interview, and many more; this one barely scratches the surface.
“There are invisible rulers who control the destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the scenes.”
One would have thought that after that terrible tragedy of 1914-1918 we would have learned, a great adventure they said but left out exactly what the troops found out later on what a horrid and dehumanising thing it was.
They never twigged on shell shock and there were people shot at dawn due to LMF which was a farce they were just shut down their nervous system ceased to function.
I have a book that I have only jus graze read call Cold Steel Warm Blood on WWI its paints exactly what the title says.
And why would the presenter ask that question "Did you feel anything for the Germans you shot" I really thought the ol' fella was going to get up and go the presenter.
If he had thought for one second about them then the enemy would have plugged him it really is that simple a rather silly question.
I have a Mons Star and an Old Contemptible Assc badge in my collection as by the 1915 part of the war there were very few of the old guard left in the ranks.
In all reality WWI was 20th century weapons meets 19th century tactics yet even in WWII shell shock was still not fully understood and now we have from other conflicts the men and women that went away to fight the good fight for us have come away scarred and different our Govt's must do more for these tortured souls to bring them back to normality.
A very interesting and frank interview from the veteran.
My wifes Grandfather was in the Irish Guards and served with the BEF at the start of it all. He was wounded in November 1914 at Ypres.
Took a bullet to the upper arm that shattered the bone. After being medically discharged in April 1915. He spent the rest of the war on the Atlantic convoy's.
He never spoke about the war. We got a copy of his service record from the Guards which filled in the details of his service.
When I first enlisted in the US Army National Guard, it was in a very historic unit. Each year the unit would have an Annual Dinner in which all of the previous members from previous wars were invited to attend. Unfortunately for many members my age they did not interface with the older veterans. I personally made it a point to sit down with them about their experiences. We had several WWI veterans attend the dinner most of whom were in the late 80 and early 90's. Many in wheel chairs. I remember one veteran describing the same experiences as the WWI Irish veteran in the interview especially about the rats. He still had nightmares of the rats even in the 1970's. It was just like yesterday. The other thing he mention was the smell. He said everything had the smell of death, the sickly sweet smell of bodies decomposing. If you buried the bodies, the German shelling would blow decomposing fresh all over you. The smell was in the water, uniforms and food, everything. I also got the talk to the officer in charge of the firing party for Ernie Slovak. There was no sympathy for him by the firing party. All great men!! all gone now.
Just read on Ernie Slovak, sad state of affairs. Didn't deserve that death. Not wanting to fight isn't a good enough reason to kill someone, especially when they didn't volunteer to be there in the first place.
PM
