Frank Buckles, the last Doughboy, passed on yesterday. He survived World War I as an ambulance driver in France , the Roaring Twenties , The Great Depression working for a steamship company. He was imprisoned as the Japanese took Manila in World War II. Living in all 110 years he carried with him, until yesterday, the last living memory of the the War to End Once and For All America’s Isolation from International Conflict. Of America’s short 235 years, Frank, born in the McKinley Administration, lived through almost half of them. Certainly during the most tumultuous and defining. I remember a time when guys his age were old but everywhere. My grandparents’ generation. Now they are gone forever. Except in books and film, where will find them and their amazing courage. The incredible horrors brought upon them by the stupid and venal pols and royals of the time never for a second diminishing the bravery of Frank and his pals.
