America's Last World War I Veteran

At 109 years old, Frank Buckles is the last American link to what was called "The Great War." He was a 16 year-old who convinced Army officials that he was 18 so he could join up and, as he says, "look for adventure." Though he never saw combat, he served primarily as a driver and a warehouse clerk in support of combat troops in Europe.

Today, World War I has been over for more than 90 years. What had been celebrated as "Armistice Day" to mark the end of the war has long since become known as "Veterans' Day," and Frank Buckles is the last living veteran of the war.

All told, World War I claimed over 16 million lives, including more than 117,000 Americans. But Fred Buckles life has lasted well into a new century.

The West Virginia native is the honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation, dedicated to honoring America's World war I veterans with an official memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

In March 2010, Frank Buckles testified before Congress, urging support of a memorial. The only remembrance of American veterans of "the war to end all wars" in Washington is a crumbling and secluded granite monument to local residents who died during the war. Buckles and the foundation would like to see it restores and dedicated as a national monument by the centennial of the start of World War I in 2014.

Frank Buckles lived a remarkable life. He sailed off to war aboard the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued survivors of the Titanic five years earlier, and was in Europe nearly a year before the war ended. After the armistice he remained in Europe and repatriated German prisoners of war back to Germany.

Later in life he worked in the steamship business. He was in the Philippines in 1941 when the Japanese invaded. Ironically, the man who'd missed the fighting in while serving in the Army during World war I spent three years in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines despite being a civilian during World War II.

Frank Buckles has seen what few people have witnessed during his 109 years. He has seen what no other American veteran of World War I has seen, because he is the last of them.

It is time that America honored these veterans with a memorial of their own, in a place of honor along the national mall in Washington, D.C. It is the least that we owe Frank Buckles, and the millions of men like him, who served this country in its time of need.