RIP Frank Buckles

If you don't know the name, he was the last surviving American veteran of World War I. Also was a WWII POW.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/02/27/wwi.veteran.death/index.html

He was 110.

 

RIP to a tireless crusader for those who fought in the most horrifying warfare know to man.

I don't know what the funeral plans are, but I imagine this will be something to see.

 

Wow. My grandmother is very elderly and she was born three years after WWI ended. The life experiences this man had have to have been incredible.

 

Damn. One of those thread titles I hoped I'd never read.

Hell of a life. RIP.

 

Enlisted at 16 and went right to the European theater, where he served as an ambulance driver. RIP to a great man.

I had the privilege to interview one of Illinois' last surviving WWI vets in 2000. IIRC, he was 114 at the time. I'll always count that among my favorite experiences in journalism. These guys were truly something special.

 

RIP Mr. Buckles. Thanks for your service to our country.

And as an aside, the name "Frank Buckles" is such a great name. It sounds like a name that should be in a comic book or a war novel.

 

Now we're down to two living WWI vets, only one who fought.

 

RIP, Mr. Buckles.

 

I thought they were all gone now. Who's left?

 

RIP to a good Okie, born before statehood even (in Missouri, but still).

 

Looks like it's Claude Stanley Choules of the UK. Now lives in Australia. Born on March 3, 1901.