WASHINGTON - Lloyd Brown remembers Armistice Day in 1918 as few - ever so few - veterans can.
"For the servicemen there were lots of hugs and kisses," recalls Brown of Charlotte Hall, Md., a teenage seaman aboard the battleship USS New Hampshire, in port stateside when the fighting stopped. "We were so happy that the war was over."
Now 104, Brown adds, "There's not too many of us around any more."
No one knows exactly how many of America's World War I veterans will celebrate Veterans Day, which marks the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, that ended what then was considered the Great War. An estimated 2-million Americans served in Europe after the United States entered the war in 1917.
Today, the Veterans Affairs Department lists just eight veterans as receiving disability benefits or pension compensation from service in World War I. It says a few dozen other veterans of the war probably are alive, too, but the government does not keep a comprehensive list. The Census Bureau stopped asking for data about those veterans years ago. Using a report of 65,000 alive in 1990 as a baseline, the VA estimates that no more than 50 remain, perhaps as few as 30.
World War I, fueled by intense nationalism and conflicting economic and colonial interests, began in the Balkans in 1914 and quickly spread across Europe because of military alliances. The major allied powers were Great Britain, France and Russia, and they were opposed by Germany, Austria-Hungary and a few others.
The U.S. remained neutral even as Germany threatened its shipping and as anti-German sentiment grew among Americans. Congress declared war on Germany in April 1917 at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson. More than 10-million troops died before the war ended with Germany's surrender. Of the U.S. troops, more than 116,000 died and more than 200,000 were wounded.
The ranks of all World War I veterans grow thinner as the months pass. One of France's seven remaining veterans died two weeks ago, and the last Australian to serve in a war zone died a week earlier.
In the United States, the last known American veteran wounded in the war died at 108 in January 2004. West Virginia's last veteran passed away in October 2004, and Iowa lost its only remaining Great War veteran two months later. An Alabama veteran of the war died last March at 110.
WAR VETERANS
Estimated number of war-era veterans, including those outside of war zones, in civilian life as of Sept. 30:
