BY any conceivable measure, Frank Buckles has led an extraordinary life. Born on a farm in Missouri in February 1901, he saw his first automobile in his hometown in 1905, and his first airplane at the Illinois State Fair in 1907. At 15 he moved on his own to Oklahoma and went to work in a bank; in the 1940s, he spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. When he returned to the United States, he married, had a daughter and bought a farm near Charles Town, W. Va., where he lives to this day. He drove a tractor until he was 104.
But even more significant than the remarkable details of Mr. Buckles’s life is what he represents: Of the two million soldiers the United States sent to France in World War I, he is the only one left.
A fitting tribute to the last survivor of the Lost Generation.
The United Kingdom has five left–two from the Army and three Royal Navy. It is amazing how little coverage there has been for the last muster of the final doughboys. When I was a child, the last Civil War veterans got an enormous amount of coverage, but I have no idea when the last Spanish-American War vet died. The War to End all Wars was such a bust on so many levels that few today seem to realize just how cataclysmic an event it was, and how loudly its repercussions still sound.
thanks for posting this article. i agree that not nearly enough attention has been paid to the heroes of that war, they made such sacrifice. i still call it armistice day. think about the outcry if we lost that amount of men now…
Anecdotal only re: Spanish-American War veterans
Dale, in the late 1960s when my grandfather went into the VA hospital in Marlin, Texas, I met a S-A War veteran who had served with T. Roosevelt. He was in for long term convalescent care but I remember him as being relatively robust even though he was then in his nineties. I think my dad, who was WWII, may have kept some information about him. Anyway based on this I’d suspect the last Spanish-American War veteran died in the late seventies or early eighties.
The headline mis-spells ‘world’.
Excellent article, tho’
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[i] Thanks. Elf Lady. [/i]
The last Canadian WWI vets were offered state funerals (well, were asked if they would accept state funerals if they did in fact end up being the last). They all said no. I think that’s a pity, because it wasn’t about them, really; it was about honouring all the Canadian WWI vets.