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Wall of Honor Level:
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Honored by:
Ms. Diane Belford

Washington Post Article: Saturday, November 11, 1978
"Veteran, 80, recalls World War I, 'the Last Heroic War'"
By Christopher Dickey
At first, the veteran at the Great War does not want to talk about it. "It is 60 years. It is so far," he says, his accent still profoundly French though he has lived half his life in the United States.
"I have not thought about 1918 since 1918. I look to the future. You open this part of my past."
But, yes, he says, he will be going to the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today, as he does on Armistice Day every year. And as he talks on it becomes clear that Washington builder Louis Montague, like so many Americans, French, and British of his generation, has never lost that part of him that fought three years against the Kaiser. He still carries within him the teenager, the man, who loved the fight.
"I couldn't see enough of the war," he says finally, his bushy gray eyebrows lifting as a smile crosses his 80-year-old face. "I was enlisted when I was 17. You are three miles from the front and don't see anything. I wanted to see the war!"
At first he served in heavy artillery, but that was not close enough, so he transferred to trench mortars.
"You are only a few hundred yards from the enemy, you know, with such a machine like that, and it makes a lot of noise. You make a good target." On April 17, 1917, he remembers, he caught a bullet in the stomach....
He is modest about it, sometimes almost cynical. He likes to say that the one thing he remembers most is "Waiting for something to do." But he is smiling almost all the time.
"You see," says Montague, "people figure that in war something exciting happens every day. That is not true-fortunately-because if it were, everybody would be dead."
...On Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, he remembers, he was still in the hospital recovering from burns on his legs. "They carried us out in the court and we drank champagne."
It was, as Montague likes to say, "so far away, all these things." Six decades ago today. The world, the wars, have changed immeasurably.
"Yes," says Montague, the battles he fought were part of the last heroic war, the last gentleman's war, perhaps. At least for fliers. "With modern weapons, missiles, people shoot at great distance. You don't even see. The new weapons you have make individual action extremely limited."
And then, too, as Montague remembers it, there was honor. "There was a lot of respect between the aviators of both countries. We would have never shot one on the ground."
...Now, there are only a few left, American and French, many of whom, like Montague, will join together to celebrate again today that anniversary of armistice; to reminisce.
Montague will return to his business. And he goes back to flying. At age 80 he still takes a Cessna up once in a while, just for fun.