Frank Buckles receives French Legion of Honor Medal at 107
Photo courtesy of Karen Kasmauski
Smithsonian Magazine, October 2008
At 107, Frank Woodruff Buckles is the only US doughboy survivor of World War I, a war in which 4.7 million American boys were recruited or conscripted and which claimed 8.5 million lives. It was supposed to be 'The War to End all Wars.'
Frank was too young at 16 to be a recruit and so after a number of turndowns by Marine and Navy recruiters, he headed from his native Missouri to Oklahoma City where he told an Army Captain that his birth certificate would not be a matter "...of public record. It would be in the family Bible." Frank continues, "You wouldn't want me to bring the family Bible down here, would you?" And with that the Captain said we was going to take him.
He was posted to England where he shuttled officers in the sidecar of a motorcycle and delivered dispatches. He did not get to the front to engage the enemy in live combat. However, after the war, he was ordered to accompany 650 prisoners of war back to Germany. This was the closest he got to combat.
On Dec. 7, 1941, he was a civilian in Manila, Phillipines and, ironically, was- himself- taken as a prisoner of war for 39 months eating his meals out of a tin cup.
He was honored by President Bush in a White House ceremony in 2008 and now lives on his family's cattle farm in Charles Town, West Virginia, named after the youngest full brother of General George Washington.
May you keep up the fighting spirt, Frank!
No comments:
Post a Comment