The ranks are thin. Where once stood thousands of young soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. there are huge gaps. Those who are left are stooped, wrinkled, and gray. As we watch, more crumple to the ground. Taps sounds in the distance. The rest remain silent ... waiting.

They are the rank and file. Their leaders, some of whom were veterans of World War I, are all gone.

Come this August, it will be 65 years since the end of World War II. The 17 and 18 year olds of 1945 are 82 and 83. Those who enlisted at 20 in 1941 when the war began are 89. Soon they all will be gone.

The "greatest generation" that fought the good war in Italy and France, and on Guadalcanal, Saipan, Iwo Jima and all the oceans between are fast joining their fallen brothers, those who never made it back and those who did but have since passed.

For many the war was a great adventure; the most exciting time of their lives. It provided purpose and direction to what later became dull and routine.

Despite the sacrifices, the country they came home to then was happier, more confident, and more secure than the one they are leaving. Like them, it is showing the effects of time and the paradox of having more but less. Complexity, with all its distractions, distorts the pleasures of simple things.

Those waiting sometimes wonder if it was worth the sacrifice. Has "progress" made life better or just more confusing? Are the kids today better off than they were when they went off to war? Was their time the golden age of a great country now slipping gradually into decline?

They wait and worry about their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. They came back to boom times, the G.I. Bill, jobs, marriage, a home and family. The whole country was proud of what they had accomplished. The future was bright. Now, times are tough; there is a sense of foreboding, a loss of direction.

They can see in the distance the graves of the fallen from World War I and the Civil War and wonder if they had the same misgivings.

As the sun begins to set, medics move through the ranks picking up those who have fallen that day. A lone trumpeter appears on a small hill and the haunting strains of Taps echo in the valley. The ranks straighten and bent frames stand tall with arms raised in salute as the colors are lowered.

Night slowly descends and the waiting retire to small campsites scattered about the valley. They sit by the fires smoking, drinking, and recalling old times, not knowing who among them will pass before the morn.

At first the missing were few, but how the ranks have shrunk. Where once stood a division, there are only twelve. Where there was a battalion, there are four, and only one remains of the crew of a destroyer.

Thus has it been after all the wars through history until only one survivor remains. He stands alone surrounded by the spirits of the hundreds of thousands who once stood with him.

He alone carries the memory of what once he shared with his fallen comrades. He is a relic, a throwback, the final witness to a forgotten era. Like a flickering candle in a sea of darkness where once there were many, he stands alone ... waiting.

James W. Dolan is a retired Dorchester District Court judge who now practices law. E-mail: jdolan@dolanconnly.com.