The Last Doughboy Has Died ... Frank Buckles

Check the story out in the Washington Post.  It's touching and interesting.  A wonderful biography of a man who was the last surviving World War I veteran.  He died on Sunday in his own bed on his farm. His name was Frank Buckles. He was 110. He faked his age to join the army at 16, and drove an ambulance behind the Western Front.

In 1917 and 1918, close to 5 million Americans served in World War I, and Mr. Buckles,  was the last known survivor. "I knew there'd be only one someday," he said a few years back. "I didn't think it would be me."

Mr. Buckles, who was born by lantern light in a Missouri farmhouse, quit school at 16 and bluffed his way into the Army. As the nation flexed its full military might overseas for the first time, he joined 4.7 million Americans in uniform and was among 2 million U.S. troops shipped to France to vanquish the German kaiser.


Ninety years later, with available records showing that former corporal Buckles, serial No. 15577, had outlived all of his compatriots from World War I, the Department of Veterans Affairs declared him the last doughboy standing.

"I feel like an endangered species," he joked, well into his 11th decade.


Source:  Washington Post