A keen student of history, he was warming to the endless pointy-headed analysis and reinterpretations to come. But not any more. He feels uncomfortable commemorating "the war to end all wars" when 100 years on, the killing goes on - with the aid of television, in our own front rooms.
Sometimes it's as though little has changed. At the beginning of June, having annexed the territory of Crimea from neighbouring country Ukraine, Russian leader Vladimir Putin joined other world leaders in France for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing. That was not part of World War I, but the similarly ruinous world war that was to follow, 21 years on.
Media reports hinted that relations between Putin and his European counterparts were frosty at the meetings six weeks ago. But not censorious enough to force him to leave.
If as a result of the appalling slaughter of World War I, the world's leading powers had perfected a way of sorting out future differences in more peaceable ways, commemorating the victims of the 1914-1918 conflict might have some point.
It could be argued they had not died in vain. But are the millions of soldiers buried in immaculately manicured graveyards going to feel honoured by gatherings of world leaders who seem to have changed little in their attitude to conflict resolution over the past 100 years?
The biggest difference is that the United States, which was a very reluctant starter in the 1914-18 conflict, is now the hardest to tie down, having over the past 60 years triggered conflicts that have caused devastation to wide stretches of Indo-China and, more recently, Afghanistan, the Middle East and parts of North Africa.
Closer to home, the Government has budgeted $17 million for "one or more large-scale commemoration projects" and for "activities and events which will bring New Zealand communities together".
But the big blow-out is on a trench to underground Buckle St, which runs in front of the Wellington National War Memorial and Carillon. Originally priced at $75 million, the Government admitted last November that the 300m underpass would now cost $120 million. Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee was reported as saying the increase was not astronomical. The underpass will get a lid on it, allowing World War I eventers to gather before the war memorial and spread out over the top of the buried road into a new park.
If there was any good news to report back to those who had died a century before on New Zealand's behalf, perhaps I could justify this spending. But when you see in your front room hooded, armed terrorists posing before the felled Malaysian jet, and film of three terrified boys fleeing along a Gaza beach from a rocket salvo from an Israeli patrol boat that has already killed some companions, you have to ask, what it is we can report back to our martyrs.
The answer is, not a lot. A hundred years on, the world continues to solve our disputes the way we always have. By killing one another. The only advance is that we've developed more efficient, fiendish and deadly ways of doing so.
Until now, I was unaware that one of the five major national commemorations to be observed over the next four years at the National War Memorial will be in October 2017, to commemorate the war in Sinai/Palestine.
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage explanatory data says that seizing the town of Beersheba from Ottoman forces "was considered the key to taking Gaza due to its strategically vital water wells".
The New Zealand Mounted Rifles "played a vital role in the Battle of Beersheba" and in "the eventual capture of Gaza from Ottoman forces".
It's such a big deal that New Zealand plans to travel to Israel to participate in Battle of Beersheba commemorations. Let's hope there are no trigger-happy gunboat captains offshore.
