Steve Frey
You have probably never heard of Frank Woodruff Buckles.
He wasn’t the owner of an international conglomerate, president of a university or a famous politician. He was, however, the last surviving soldier from World War I.
Veterans Day is tomorrow. Nov. 11 is the real Veterans Day, even if some may celebrate it on Monday.
The Armistice ending World War I was signed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. That war was so terrible, with so many being killed, that it was supposed to be “the war that ends all wars.”
However, the “Great War” was only a prelude to a much bloodier and horrific war, World War II, only one short generation later.
Veterans Day and World War I have a special anniversary tomorrow: it is 100 years since the end of that war. We remember the “doughboys” who left America to fight “over there” in Europe, some never coming back to their homes.
Many of those young men had probably never left the New River Valley for places like Richmond, let alone “Paree.”
Born Wood Buckles, Frank was one of those young men. He grew up in Missouri and later moved to Oklahoma.
He enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 16, lying about his age to serve, and drove ambulances near the front. He spent two years with the AEF (American Expeditionary Force) before returning home.
Unfortunately, that was not his only brush with warfare.
After the war, he got a job working for various shipping companies. In the early 1940s, the shipping business took him to Manila in the Philippines.
After the outbreak of World War II and the invasion of the Philippines by the Japanese, he remained in Manila to help resupply U.S. troops.
He was captured in January 1942 by the Japanese and spent the next three years and two months in the Santo Tomas and Los Baños prison camps.
He knew starvation, receiving only a small meal of mush served in a tin cup—a utensil he kept for the rest of his life.
He and his fellow prisoners were rescued by the 11th Airborne Division on Feb. 23, 1945.
Somehow, he survived both WWI and over three years in those Japanese prison camps. In 1954, he bought Gap View Farm (appropriately named for a gap through the Blue Ridge Mountains where one could see Harpers Ferry) in Charles Town, West Virginia, where he lived as a farmer. That area was the same land his forefathers had settled in 1732.
On Feb. 27, 2011, Buckles died of natural causes at his home at the age of 110 years. He was buried in Arlington Cemetery with full honors.
Frank Buckles, the oldest surviving WWI soldier, died a little less than eight years ago.
We salute Buckles, as we do all of the soldiers, now gone, who fought in that horrible war that ended 100 years ago tomorrow.
But tomorrow is about all veterans of all the services and from so many different places. Some served in the firefights of Hue, or a foxhole in the frozen ground of the Chosin Reservoir, or a remote desert outpost in Iraq.
Some have served by making maps in Texas, manning a weather station in Alaska, flying out of Norfolk Air Station or helping to guide a submarine.
All of our veterans were willing to make the supreme sacrifice and spent years ready to answer our nation’s call anywhere they were needed around the world. They are a band of brothers and sisters, united by a common bond of service. They love America and each other.
Veterans Day is an opportunity to thank them for their service. It is also a time to remember those who came home wounded physically or emotionally.
It is a chance to remember the current needs of all veterans. They gave everything for our country. We must never forget that, and we must see that they receive the services they need.
Many veterans don’t like to talk about experiences that are fixed forever in their minds.
Here is a short poem this author wrote several years ago that is reflective of some of the feelings some veterans may be experiencing this weekend:
” November 11th ”
Dark shadows rise and fall against the flickering walls.
Specters dance on the windows,
And winds sing through the trees.
An old man sits in a chair alone,
Gathering in the warmth of the fire.
Staring into the flames, he sees the faces—
Faces from so long ago.
They are the faces of young men,
Some who never came home.
Sometimes he wonders how he made it,
Why he gets to sit by a fire on a cold, November night.
Mostly, though, he just stares at the flames,
Trying to stop the faces that never fade.
Others may forget;
He never will.
Take a few moments to remember our veterans today and, if you know one, thank him or her for their service. It will mean a lot. More than you may ever know.
Steve Frey is a writer and CEO of Ascendant Educational Resources based in Radford.
