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Other Junk => (P)Leasure Hall => Topic started by: cyclist on February 28, 2011, 07:41:10 AM
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From the Kansas City Star:
Last living US WWI vet dies in W. Va. at age 110
By VICKI SMITH
Associated Press
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Charlie Riedel
FILE -- In a May 26, 2008 file photo Frank Buckles receives an American flag during Memorial Day activities at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Mo. Biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said in a statement that Frank Woodruff Buckles died early Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011 of natural causes in his home in Charles Town, W.Va.
(http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2011/02/28/00/224-709Obit_Last_WWI_Veteran.sff.thumb.prod_affiliate.81.jpg)
He was repeatedly rejected by military recruiters and got into uniform at 16 after lying about his age. But Frank Buckles would later become the last surviving U.S. veteran of World War I.
Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died of natural causes Sunday at his home in Charles Town, biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said in a statement. He was 110.
Buckles had been advocating for a national memorial honoring veterans of the Great War in the nation's capital.
When asked in February 2008 how it felt to be the last of his kind, he said simply, "I realized that somebody had to be, and it was me." And he told The Associated Press he would have done it all over again, "without a doubt."
On Nov. 11, 2008, the 90th anniversary of the end of the war, Buckles attended a ceremony at the grave of World War I Gen. John Pershing in Arlington National Cemetery.
He was back in Washington a year later to endorse a proposal to rededicate the existing World War I memorial on the National Mall as the official National World War I Memorial. He told a Senate panel it was "an excellent idea." The memorial was originally built to honor District of Columbia's war dead.
Born in Missouri in 1901 and raised in Oklahoma, Buckles visited a string of military recruiters after the United States entered the "war to end all wars" in April 1917. He was repeatedly rejected before convincing an Army captain he was 18. He was actually 16 1/2.
"A boy of (that age), he's not afraid of anything. He wants to get in there," Buckles said.
Details for services and arrangements will be announced later this week. The family asks that donations be made to the National World War One Legacy Project. The project is managed by the nonprofit Survivor Quest and will educate students about Buckles and WWI through a documentary and traveling educational exhibition.
More than 4.7 million people joined the U.S. military from 1917-18. As of spring 2007, only three were still alive, according to a tally by the Department of Veterans Affairs: Buckles, J. Russell Coffey of Ohio and Harry Richard Landis of Florida.
The dwindling roster prompted a flurry of public interest, and Buckles went to Washington in May 2007 to serve as grand marshal of the national Memorial Day parade.
Coffey died Dec. 20, 2007, at age 109, while Landis died Feb. 4, 2008, at 108. Unlike Buckles, those two men were still in basic training in the United States when the war ended and did not make it overseas.
The last known Canadian veteran of the war, John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., died in February 2010.
There are no French or German veterans of the war left alive.
Buckles served in England and France, working mainly as a driver and a warehouse clerk. The fact he did not see combat didn't diminish his service, he said: "Didn't I make every effort?"
An eager student of culture and language, he used his off-duty hours to learn German, visit cathedrals, museums and tombs, and bicycle in the French countryside.
After Armistice Day, Buckles helped return prisoners of war to Germany. He returned to the United States in January 1920.
Buckles returned to Oklahoma for a while, then moved to Canada, where he worked a series of jobs before heading for New York City. There, he again took advantage of free museums, worked out at the YMCA, and landed jobs in banking and advertising.
But it was the shipping industry that suited him best, and he worked around the world for the White Star Line Steamship Co. and W.R. Grace & Co.
In 1941, while on business in the Philippines, Buckles was captured by the Japanese. He spent more than three years in prison camps.
"I was never actually looking for adventure," Buckles once said. "It just came to me."
He married in 1946 and moved to his farm in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle in 1954, where he and wife Audrey raised their daughter, Susannah Flanagan. Audrey Buckles died in 1999.
In spring 2007, Buckles told the AP of the trouble he went through to get into the military.
"I went to the state fair up in Wichita, Kansas, and while there, went to the recruiting station for the Marine Corps," he said. "The nice Marine sergeant said I was too young when I gave my age as 18, said I had to be 21."
Buckles returned a week later.
"I went back to the recruiting sergeant, and this time I was 21," he said with a grin. "I passed the inspection ... but he told me I just wasn't heavy enough."
Then he tried the Navy, whose recruiter told Buckles he was flat-footed.
Buckles wouldn't quit. In Oklahoma City, an Army captain demanded a birth certificate.
"I told him birth certificates were not made in Missouri when I was born, that the record was in a family Bible. I said, 'You don't want me to bring the family Bible down, do you?'" Buckles said with a laugh. "He said, 'OK, we'll take you.'"
He enlisted Aug. 14, 1917, serial number 15577.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/27/2686816/last-veteran-of-wwi-dies-in-w.html#ixzz1FGCTXzKn
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I really need to add this:
:Salute:
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Saw this too this morning. Sad day. In the article I read it mentions there is now Official National WWI memorial. I thought the Liberty Memorial in KC was the Official WWI Memorial, Cy you work there help me out here.
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The short answer is this - where I volunteer is the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, MO. (site link):
http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index_community.aspx (http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index_community.aspx)
Mission statement and brief history is here:
http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/images/editor_documents/mission%20statement%20and%20brief%20history.pdf (http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/images/editor_documents/mission%20statement%20and%20brief%20history.pdf)
The World War I Memorial is in Washington, DC:
http://www.wwimemorial.org/ (http://www.wwimemorial.org/)
It was originally built as the District of Columbia War Memorial and dedicated on November 11, 1931. It is currently being restored and while it is on the National Mall, it is off to the side and not really prompted. Perhaps that will change.
To be honest, I don't believe there is a conflict here. Kansas City has the national museum and Washington has the national memorial. And Kansas City does have a World War I Memorial. It is called the Liberty Memorial.
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OK that's where I was confused. It's the national MUSEUM and not MEMORIAL. Didn't realize that.
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More from the Kansas City Star:
America’s last doughboy, dead at age 110, had Missouri roots
By MATT CAMPBELL
The Kansas City Star
Missouri native Frank Woodruff Buckles was the last one.
The last doughboy, the last American soldier who was witness to the “war to end all wars.â€
Buckles died Sunday at age 110 at his home in West Virginia.
Tributes came forth from President Barack Obama, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.
Buckles’ connection to this area goes beyond the fact that he was born in Harrison County, Mo., near Bethany, in 1901. He enlisted in the Army — underage at 16 — in August 1917 and trained at Fort Riley.
Buckles returned in 2008 as guest of honor at the Memorial Day ceremony at the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.
“It is really quite extraordinary for an institution like this to bring in someone who actually participated in a war that is now almost a hundred years in the past,†museum President Brian Alexander said Monday. “It was so interesting to go through the gallery with Frank and have him tell stories, and how the exhibits moved him.â€
Buckles said his experiences were still clear in his mind.
“I was gung-ho,†he told The Kansas City Star.
Buckles and his detachment sailed to Europe in December 1917 aboard the Carpathia, the ship that had rescued Titanic survivors in 1912. Buckles drove ambulances in England and France and attained the rank of corporal. After the armistice of 1918, Buckles drove German POWs back to their country.
He did not see combat but he recalled it as “a severe war.â€
Buckles said his memories of the war were still vivid at age 107 because he didn’t dwell on it afterward and his stories did not get mixed up or embellished with retellings.
“My memories haven’t been confused as the stories of others because I didn’t talk about it,†he said. “So if I have any memories at all, they are quite accurate.â€
Buckles met Gen. John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force and a fellow Missourian, after the war and recalled him being “the most military figure I’ve ever seen.â€
The last known French soldier from the war died in 2008, the last known British soldier died in 2009 and the last known Canadian soldier died in 2010.
Plans are being made for Buckles to lie in repose in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol and be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Preparations to honor him and his generation also are being made in the Kansas City area. The Liberty Memorial is working with the Kansas City-based Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Army Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth to plan a ceremony to be held on a Saturday this month. The date hasn’t been set.
In recent years Buckles became an advocate for a national World War I memorial in Washington, D.C., but he was also supportive of the Liberty Memorial, according to his daughter, Susannah Flanagan.
A bill pending in Congress would declare the Liberty Memorial the “National World War I Museum and Memorial†and the one in Washington the “District of Columbia and National World War I Memorial.â€
“We have lost a living link to an important era in our nation’s history,†Shinseki said Monday of Buckles. “But we have also lost a man of quiet dignity, who dedicated his final years to ensuring the sacrifices of his fellow ‘doughboys’ are appropriately commemorated.â€
More than 4.7 million Americans served in the military in World War I. About 53,000 died of combat-related causes, while 63,000 other deaths were listed as non-combat.
While here in 2008, Buckles said he was honored to represent the World War I generation.
“And especially being here in Kansas City,†he said, “because I am among my fellow Missourians.â€
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/28/2689225/americas-last-doughboy-dead-at.html#ixzz1FMXMlB1f
:Salute:
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OK that's where I was confused. It's the national MUSEUM and not MEMORIAL. Didn't realize that.
A bill pending in Congress would declare the Liberty Memorial the “National World War I Museum and Memorial†and the one in Washington the “District of Columbia and National World War I Memorial.â€
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/28/2689225/americas-last-doughboy-dead-at.html#ixzz1FMYOz9qV
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BTW, The World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial is honoring the Great War Generation this Saturday, March 12, at 10:00 am. It is a ceremony to honor the passing of a generation.
See the link for details:
http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index.aspx?sid=110&gid=1&pgid=1193 (http://www.theworldwar.org/s/110/new/index.aspx?sid=110&gid=1&pgid=1193)
I will be handing out programs and 'working' the museum until 1:30 pm.