The last combat veteran of World War I  has died.  Frank Buckles, a volunteer with the American Expeditionary Forces, passed away at the age of 110.  I have mentioned Buckles in a few of my previous posts, here and here.  Buckles was born in Missouri, and later moved to West Virginia.  He volunteered for duty in April, 1917, at the age of 16.  According to Wikipedia, when asked to show a birth certificate, Buckles told the recruiter that his home state of Missouri did not issue birth certificates.  He claimed the only record of his birth was in the family Bible at his parents’ house, and he refused to go home to get it.  He was allowed to enlist without proof of age.

Buckles served on the Western Front in France, mainly as a motorcycle messenger and ambulance driver.  He sailed to Europe with other enlistees aboard the RMS Carpathia, the same ship that rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster several years before.  The Carpathia itself was destroyed by German U-boats in 1918. 

A few years after the war, Buckles attended the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, and during that event he met General John Pershing, the commander of American forces in World War I.  On leaving the army, he started a career working for a private shipping company in the Philippine Islands.  He was in the Philippines when the Japanese attacked near the start of World War II.  Buckles was taken prisoner by the Japanese, and spent most of World War II as a prisoner of war.  When he was rescued in 1945, he weighed 100 lbs, and was suffering from malnutrition and beriberi. 

For his service during World War I, the United States awarded Buckles the Victory Medal, and the Army of Occupation Medal.  In 2004, French President Jacques Chirac honored Buckles by naming him a Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur.  On May 25, 2008, Buckles was honored again at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, where he received the Veterans of Foreign Wars Medal of Merit. 

Even in his latter years, Mr. Buckles remained active.  Through his website, www.frankbuckles.org, he corresponded with school children studying the two world wars.  As recently as December, 2009, Mr. Buckles appreared before the United States Senate to lobby for a memorial to the 5 million Americans who served in the military during World War I, 117,000 of whom did not come home alive.

With Frank Buckles’ passing, the world has lost its sole direct connection to one of the pivotal times of world history.  By all accounts, Buckles was a man of great honor and integrity.  The world is a little less with his passing, but a little better for the time that he was here.