Time is, perhaps, our worst enemy when it comes to recounting historic events.

Monday marked the 100th anniversary of World War I, an event that few Selma residents were alive to experience. It was undoubtedly different than our 21st century battles in the Middle East.

It seems that when the United States entered war in the early 1900s that the whole country was involved. Nearly everyone knew a friend or a neighbor that served. If not a soldier, you surely knew someone that helped build military equipment.

Reportedly, 70 million military personnel were mobilized. It’s a number that’s unfathomable by today’s wartime standards.

The last living World War I veteran — Frank Buckles of West Virginia — died in 2011. At the time, he was 110.

In the modern era, technology often provides our society with ways to record historic and important information. Regardless, there’s nothing like hearing it from someone who lived through actual events.

Thankfully, one symbol to Selma’s war history  — a pearl white eagle — still stands in the city. The eagle keeps a watchful eye over downtown Selma, from the corner of Lauderdale and Alabama Avenue.

A monument in front of Memorial Stadium also tells stories of war, with a lengthy list of the casualties of Dallas County residents.

A third sits a few hundred miles away in Galveston, Texas. The S.S. Selma, a ship made completely of concrete, sits just of the coast of the south Texas city. It now functions more of a tourist destination more than a functional object.

The ship has no immediate connection to the Black Belt city, other than its name. Though the name, like the monument in front of Memorial Stadium tell a small story of Selma’s World War 1 history.

The ship was named for Selma because of the city’s successful war bond drive.

Little stories, such as the previous three, tell interesting stories about the past, as most story-tellers from that time have perished.

Though it’s now been 100 years and World War I veterans are non-existent, small plaques and monuments are scattered throughout the nation that tell tales, rarely mentioned in modern society.

As we look for clues about what the U.S. may have been like in the 1910s, perhaps these small mementos can offer clues into the mysterious past.