When 14-year-old Claude Choules joined the Royal Navy in 1916 he didn’t know he would eventually become the last person alive who fought in both World Wars. For him, the end came on May 6th in a Perth, Australia nursing home 110 years after his birth.
The news stories celebrating his notoriety as the last or the oldest man pretty-much overlooked the fact that he was married for 80 years to the same woman—Ethel, who died when she was 98.
When Ethel’s health began to go downhill, Mr. Choules stayed close by her side. She had dementia for a couple of years before she died. Saying that she might need him, he slept on a piece of canvass he had placed on the floor next to Ethel’s bed. Right up to the end they would sit and hold hands.
Today, both the military and marriage are under attack by the same people who don’t like either one. With our military’s embrace of homosexuality and society’s approval of just about anything as a marriage, I wonder where we’re headed. I wonder if future generations in the West will have the moral courage to both defend their homeland and, through faithfulness in marriage, bring us future generations with heroes like Claude and Ethel Choules.
