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Armistice Day...Every Family Has a Story
ForEvery family has a story. My mother told me of my great-grandfather, Julius (or Jules?) Brinkmann, who was killed on this date in 1918 in World War I on the Western Front.
Word of the armistice, which took effect the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month of 1918, did not reach all the lines in real time. He was killed sometime later that day, AFTER the armistice.
He would have been one of the very last casualties of the Great War. You know, the war that was supposed to end all wars.
Oh, and he was a German. Funny, that really doesn't seem to matter, does it?
What is your family story? Please comment.
This is a generic photo, not of Julius...but it could have been.
My German step grandfather fought in the trenches in WWI. As a young soldier of 18 or 19 he found himself in the trenches facing another young soldier who happened to be French. It was a him or me survival situation. According to my mother, my stepgrandfather never got over killing another human being.
ReplyDeleteOn a more humorous note, my step grandfather also relayed the story of eating a sandwich. He opened his up to find maggots crawling and jumping around. He said, he looked at it, thought about it, shut that sandwich and