Harry Patch, the British 111-year-old last survivor of the WWI Western Front trench warfare, died July 25, 2009. His funeral packed the cathedral in Wells, another 2,500 mourners stood outside in a steady drizzle to watch on a giant video screen and the funeral was broadcast live to the nation. But the New York Times headline reads, "Funeral for the Oldest Warrior, Who Hated War."

Patch was 19 when he was struck by a German shell and over 100 when he began talking against war. He repeatedly spoke of the futility of war and how enemies on the battlefield share a common humanity. "War isn't worth one life," the Times article quotes Patch as saying. "Too many died." Whenever he was celebrated, he would say to honor the ones who didn't come home and always, "Remember the Germans."

Although his casket was draped with the Union Jack and carried by soldiers, no weapons were allowed in the Cathedral. More impressively, two German soldiers were present and a German diplomat read from 2 Corinthians 5:16-21:

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, [they] are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting [their] sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIV)