Integrity News

This story comes from the Army Times:

Sole Survivor: Congress Honors Last US Veteran of World War I

A 107-year-old West Virginia farmer, recognized as the last living U.S. veteran of World War I, said he was honored to be the last representative of a generation of veterans.

Frank W. Buckles, who enlisted in the Army in 1917 and drove ambulances, cars and motorcycles in France and England during the war, was honored June 18 at a U.S. Capitol event and also feted June 19 in a ceremony at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Buckles enlisted at the age of 16 and remained in the military after the Armistice until 1920.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Buckles had to enlist in the Marine Corps and Navy but was turned away. He managed to join the Army when “he found a friendly recruiter who believed the hometown where he was born did not keep birth records, or at least looked the other way.”

Reid noted that Buckles, although a civilian during World War II, was living in the Philippines and was one of the Americans held for 3½ years as a prisoner of war by the Japanese.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the oldest serving U.S. senator, was born the year that Buckles began his service. Reid joked that Byrd is young enough to be Buckles’ son, and Byrd called Buckles “my role model.”

Former Sen. Bob Dole, a Kansas Republican, was one of many people attending the event who said they were there because their fathers had served in World War I and that Buckles represented them.

Dole also joked that as the last surviving veteran of the Great War, “you can tell any story you want. You can say there were 500 enemy troops and you only had one bullet. There is nobody around to correct you, Frank.”

— Rick Maze

This reminds me of how we have lost so many great people: World War I veterans and World War II veterans, our immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents who landed at Ellis Island, and women who remembered when they weren’t allowed to vote, or African-Americans who attended segregated schools. Whenever you get a chance to meet someone who lived during some historic event, take the time to talk to them and maybe you will learn something.