Harry Patch, Britain’s last survivor of the trenches of World War I, was a reluctant soldier who became a powerful eyewitness to the horror of war, and a symbol of a lost generation.

Patch, who died Saturday at 111, was wounded in 1917 in the Battle of Passchendaele, which he remembered as ‘mud, mud and more mud mixed together with blood.’

The Associated Press: Last UK veteran of WWI trench battles dies at 111.

Is Michael Jackson still dead? I imagine so, though for some time now I’ve been changing the channel every time I hear his name or see his image. Not because I’m indifferent to his death, but because the sideshow that followed it became obscene. There is much that we are losing every day. There are many that are passing from life. To linger over one so leeringly is vapid and tawdry.

Here was a hero, Harry Patch. I commend to you his obituary. He fought, he suffered, he told the truth, and lived out the rest of his life with wisdom and in peace. There is a very great deal we can learn from that. Not the least of which is that a simple life can be lived greatly, and that we as a society have a bizarre sense of celebrity in death. If anyone’s passing should be marked by great crowds in public arenas … well, you get my point.