In 1918, at the age of 22, my grandfather left his home in Ohio and went overseas as part of the American Expeditionary Force.

His parents had emigrated to the United States from Germany, and they had spoken German in their home while my grandfather was growing up. That made him valuable to General Pershing's staff as an interpreter.

My grandfather was fortunate. He returned home from the War to End War and lived until 1985, when he died at the age of 89 after being an important part of my life for 35 years.

I don't remember many specifics about the war stories he told me. I know he was proud of his service, and I also know I never asked him about the "war to end war" part of it. Because World War I may have been a lot of things, but it didn't do much to end war as an instrument of national policy.

Nearly 93 years after the Armistice, we are a very cynical people. The very idea that people would do something like fight a war for idealistic reasons is enough to make us laugh, although many of the young men and women who enlist in the armed forces these days do it for idealistic reasons.

They serve. They fight. They die.

And we laugh at their idealism, because we know so much more than they do about why wars are fought.

Or at least we think we do.

I'm not sure why I have been thinking about World War I so much the last few days. Maybe it was partly that I discovered the wonderful songs of Eric Bogle, the Scots-Australian singer who wrote "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda." His song about the ANZAC troops' sacrifice at Gallipoli is one of the most moving antiwar songs I've ever heard, but it was another wonderful Bogle song that really got me thinking.

"No Man's Land," also known alternately as "Green Fields of France" or "Willie McBride," is the story of a man visiting a military graveyard in France and sitting down beside the headstone of Willie McBride, who died in 1916 at the age of 19.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUzQ6Am-bbc&amp;feature=related

This particular video is really moving, with Bogle singing in English and a German singer alternating verses, because yes, 19-year-old boys on both sides died in France for issues that were far beyond their ken.

The ending is enough to bring tears to your eyes, with Bogle singing directly to the dead soldier.

<em>"Did you really believe that this war would end wars? Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame, the killing, the dying, it was all done in vain. For Willie McBride, it all happened again, and again and again and again and again."</em>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5s4wjOmW_M&amp;feature=related