Over There — and Gone Forever (the only WWI Vet left)

[babylonsister]

Over There — and Gone Forever


By RICHARD RUBIN
Published: November 12, 2007

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.

This Veterans Day marked the 89th anniversary of the armistice that ended that war. The holiday, first proclaimed as Armistice Day by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and renamed in 1954 to honor veterans of all wars, has become, in the minds of many Americans, little more than a point between Halloween and Thanksgiving when banks are closed and mail isn’t delivered. But there’s a good chance that this Veterans Day will prove to be the last with a living American World War I veteran. (Mr. Buckles is one of only three left; the other two were still in basic training in the United States when the war ended.) Ten died in the last year. The youngest of them was 105.

At the end of his documentary “The War,” Ken Burns notes that 1,000 World War II veterans are dying every day. Their passing is being observed at all levels of American society; no doubt you have heard a lot about them in recent days. Fortunately, World War II veterans will be with us for some years yet. There is still time to honor them. But the passing of the last few veterans of the First World War is all but complete, and has gone largely unnoticed here.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Almost from the moment the armistice took effect, the United States has worked hard, it seems, to forget World War I; maybe that’s because more than 100,000 Americans never returned from it, lost for a cause that few can explain even now. The first few who did come home were given ticker-tape parades, but most returned only to silence and a good bit of indifference.

There was no G.I. Bill of Rights to see that they got a college education or vocational training, a mortgage or small-business loan. There was nothing but what remained of the lives they had left behind a year or two earlier, and the hope that they might eventually be able to return to what President Warren Harding, Wilson’s successor, would call “normalcy.” Prohibition, isolationism, the stock market bubble and the crisis in farming made that hard; the Great Depression, harder still.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/opinion/12rubin.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[rockymountaindem]

1. The story is totally different in Canada

WWI is a major part of the Canadian national consciousness and every time one of the few remaining WWI vets dies it is front page news. I agree with the author, though, that WWI vets never got enough respect in American history. About the only time you ever hear of them is in the old Charlie Brown TV shows when he talks about his grandfather or when Snoopy is having one of his flights of fancy.

That being said, I wonder if he really *is* the last one left or if there are some still out there who just haven't been brought into the public eye.

[TwilightGardener]

2. What an amazing life this guy had, to have served in both wars

and still living to tell about it at 106. Sad to see our last living connections to such important history die away, but time marches on.

[maxsolomon]

3. this i don't get:

"Fortunately, World War II veterans will be with us for some years yet. There is still time to honor them."

still time? have we been negligent in honoring veterans in the most bellicose, militarized nation on the planet? VA hospital conditions aside, i'm pretty sure they've been honored. and feted. and praised. and thanked. and documentarized. and hagiographized. "the greatest generation", anyone?

is the required condition constant, 24/7 honoring? would you not get tired of being constantly honored?

"can i get you another ice tea to honor your service?"
"what kind of starch would you like to honor your service?"
"here's your happy meal & thanks for your service."

[pansypoo53219]

4. i just started reading a WW1 memoir

And "they thought we wouldn't fight' by floyd Gibbons. published 1918. he was a correspondent, but he was like murrow. but 'an inbed'. and was wounded, lost an eye.
just started chapter 2. it's pretty good.