American Valor Quarterly Issue 1 - Winter 2007 | Page 4

The Great War
Through the Eyes of its Last Eyewitness

Frank W. Buckles is one of America’s oldest living veterans. At
106 years old, Mr. Buckles is one of only three living veterans of
World War I known to the U.S. government, and the only one to
have been serving in Europe when the war ended in November of
1918. On Memorial Day, 2007, Mr. Buckles came to
Washington, DC, to serve as Honorary Marshal for World War
I in the National Memorial Day Parade, presented by the American
Veterans Center. In this inaugural issue
of American Valor Quarterly, Frank
W. Buckles tells his story, in his own
words…

passenger vessels in the Atlantic. Finally in 1917 after learning
of a German attempt to draw Mexico into the war with our
country, the United States declared war on Germany. For Frank
Buckles, the decision to join the service was an easy one.
It was something I was interested in doing. Everybody
was talking about it.
At age 16, Buckles tried to enlist, but he
was turned away by several recruiters for
being underage. Since pretending to be
18 wasn’t working, he told the next
recruiter he was 21, and his military
service officially got started.

Born in 1901, during the McKinley
Administration, Frank Buckles grew up
in the heartland of America, which gave
him something in common with his hero,
who was also commander of American
forces during the First World War.
I grew up on my father’s farm in
Harrison County, Missouri, and
when I met General John Joseph
Pershing, he asked me where I was
born. When I told him, he said it
was just 43 miles, as the crow flies,
from Linn County where he was
born. So I suppose we were
fellows.

I enlisted in the regular Army on the
14th of August, 1917. I had been
advised by one of the older
sergeants that the way to get to
France quickly was to go into the
Ambulance Corps, because the
French were begging for the
ambulance service. I went from Ft.
Logan, Colorado, to Ft. Riley,
Kansas, and received advanced
training in trench warfare.
By this time, France was weary from
waging war for more than three years,
all of it on its own soil. The massive
casualties on their side led the French to label their battered men
as the “lost generation.” Buckles recalls that they and their British
allies were deadlocked against a persistent enemy and both countries
were very happy to see the Yanks arrive.

Frank W. Buckles - a soldier at the age of 16.

When Buckles was 13, World War I broke out in Europe. We
may be able to watch war play out minute by minute today, but
back then, of course, there was no television or radio to help him
follow events. Nonetheless, Mr. Buckles was engrossed by the war
coverage in his local newspaper.

When I arrived in Europe, I felt it was a very severe
The papers were full of coverage of the war. I could read situation. We were welcomed in Britain, and welcomed
about what was happening in Europe, the problems with in France, but it was very serious. They were happy to
Mexico, right up to date.
see the Americans, both the British and the French, and
their feeling was that it was a relief to have some younger
As the next couple of years played out, Americans were drawn people coming in to help.
ever closer to the side of the Allies, after German U-Boats sunk
the Lusitania and unrestricted submarine warfare threatened many
American Valor Quarterly - Winter, 2007/08 - 4