By Lakhram Bhagirat
“I was young back then and I was very vibrant. I would have done anything for my country and that is what made me go to join the Army and then went to enlist to fight in World War II. But when we were at the airport, them call and said to go back to Base, that the war is off. I was willing to lay down my life for my country because that is what was expected of me,” Benjamin Durant tells me.
Although he never made it to the battlefield, Durant is considered one of Guyana’s World War II veterans because he was enlisted at the time, guided by his willingness to head into battle. Durant will celebrate his 100th birthday on Thursday and tells me he considers himself lucky to be born a few days after the First World War ended on November 11, 1918.
He said this year’s celebration was going to be extra special, since it was also the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. Despite the century milestone looming ahead of him, Durant is quite active although he has cataracts, which have impaired his vision and hence affected his mobility. Apart from that, he says, all his other faculties are intact, as our chat a few days ago demonstrated.
“After I left the Army and went back to carpentry, I was working on the Salvation Army Church and we were putting on a door, but we had to chip it a bit and one of the greenheart chips went into my eyes. It was the same day that (former President Linden Forbes Sampson) Burnham died and I didn’t pay no attention to it, because we were crying for the President. But after a week the chip come out my eyes and then when I went to the doctor they said I have infant stage cataract, but they can’t operate and slowly I lost my sight,” he tells me.
Going back to his earlier days, Durant said that he was just 22 when he decided to enlist and was immediately thrown into combat training. He received his training at a location in the Upper Berbice River area where he was exposed to various levels of battle training preparing him to join his colleagues in the Second World War. 
“I was just married when I went to join the Army and before that I was a joiner, but I wanted to be a carpenter,” he said.
So, I asked him why did he choose the Army when he had already been making a career as a joiner to which he responded: “I was young and we had the energy to do that. We were not going to skylark and wait for something to happen. I wanted to be a part of it, because I had an uncle name Joseph Durant and he was a part of the First World War and when he came back in his uniform and all his medals, it was then as a little boy I know I wanted to go and be like him.”
He said as he was preparing himself to go to war, he could have only thought about the three children that he had because they would have been fatherless had he not returned. Durant separated from his first wife and remarried, fathering another 11 children in that union. But he tells me that he has several other children with different women. When I asked him how many children he has, he could not have confined it to a specific number, but said about 16 to 20.
“They will all come next week for my birthday party. Most of them outside and they will come in for the party. You should come to the party too, so you can meet then,” he said, extending an impromptu invitation to join his celebration. One year after the end of the Second World War, Durant would leave the military and follow his dream of becoming a carpenter. He explained that he would have stayed on in the Army, but they were offering a place as a Customs Officer with the Police Force, a job which he knew nothing of. So, he went back to carpentry where he made a name for himself.
Now he resides with one of his daughters in Goedverwagting on the East Coast of Demerara.
“Now I take everything easy and one day at a time. I am living comfortably now and life is going on,” he says.
I then concluded our chat by asking Durant for a little advice for the young people, and this is what he had to say “To live long you have to enjoy every day and be active. Put your country above anything else and always fight for it. Respect it and always be proud of Guyana, because without Guyana, we are nothing.” (Sunday Times Magazine)
