It is hard to believe they all gone now, the millions of Americans who fought against the Kaiser in the American Expeditionary Force. Frank Woodruff Buckles, 110, America’s last Doughboy, went to join his fellow soldiers on Sunday, February 17, 2011. He lied about his age to enlist in the Army at age 16. He served as an ambulance driver in England and France. He left the Army in 1920, but that was not the end of his wartime adventures. In World War 2 he endured three years as a guest of the Emperor, as a civilian POW in the Philippines. God rest his soul.
Taps For The Last Doughboy
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
RIP
If you can find (my village Library doesn’t have one any more) a copy, I suggest reading The Doughboys by Lawrence Stallings. I see it on “Amazon” for about $50.
And, Tears in the Dark is a personal account of the the Bataan Death March and POW camp/stravation/slave labor conditions in the Philippines in WWII. Then, they shipped to Japan some for worse.
Greet them ever with grateful hearts.
Even our younger WWII heroes are in their mid 80’s, now. All my WWII veteran relatives now have gone on to glory.
Both my grandfathers served in the military during WWI. They have both, of course, passed on to their rewards. My paternal grandfather (2-28-1899/1-10?-1998) was stationed in England. He served in the Canadian Army. And my maternal grandfather (1890-1954) served in the U.S. Army and saw combat.
They were both immigrants. The former emigrated from England as a boy in 1910 or 1911. And the latter emigrated from Scotland just before the war I think. He was naturalized at Camp Lee in Virginia in 1918.