Sayings

[RachelS]

Who said Old soliers never die, they simply fade away 7-8, it was before General MacArthur probably WW1.

[kev100]

No idea rachel, but this may shed some light:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/12/messages/859 .html

[Clanad]

General Douglas MacArthur was one of the most prominent U.S. military figures of the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning as a combat officer in World War I, MacArthur's military career reached its pinnacle after his victorious Pacific campaign during World War II with his appointment as Supreme Allied Commander charged with presiding over the Japanese transition to democratic self-rule. MacArthur's career came to a close during the Korean War, but as recognition of his status as one of the nation's greatest living military leaders, Congress asked him to address a joint session. MacArthur closed his speech with a famous line from an old army ballad: "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."  (Source: Library of Congress)

[Clanad]

To finish the post, 'old soldiers never die: they simply fade away' has been extracted from the British Army's C20 parody of the song 'Kind Thoughts Can Never Die' and the tune adopted from it . . . This immortal ditty appeared in John Brophy and Eric Partridge, 'Songs and Slang of the British Soldier: 1914-1918,' 1930, and has been preserved in 'The Long Trail,' lamentably out of print in Britain, but to be reprinted in the US.

Unfortunately, none of this seems to help you solve your problem...

[Clanad]

Well, try this (if it's not to late); a title of prose and poetry written in 1933, 15 years after the War,  by Frank Richards, which was his classic account of the war from the standpoint of the regular soldier, and which differs in many ways from memoirs written by officers who joined the army specifically to serve in the war was "Old Soldiers Never Die".  He was truly and Old Soldier himself, and come to find out his real name was Francis Woodruff... voila, 7 and 8...