{"id":18462,"date":"2011-03-01T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18462"},"modified":"2011-02-28T15:20:13","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T21:20:13","slug":"the-last-doughboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=18462","title":{"rendered":"The Last Doughboy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Frank Buckles &#8211; the last surviving American veteran of World War I &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.msnbc.msn.com\/_news\/2011\/02\/28\/6151083-farewell-to-frank-buckles-last-surviving-us-world-war-i-veteran\">has rejoined the rest of his comrades<\/a>.\u00a0 He passed away yesterday, age 110.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died peacefully of natural causes early Sunday at his home in Charles Town [West Virginia], biographer and family spokesman David DeJonge said in a statement. Buckles turned 110 on Feb. 1 and had been advocating for a national memorial honoring veterans of World War I in Washington, D.C.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There are two known WWI survivors left in the world; an Australian man and a British woman, 109 and 110 respectively.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/photoblog.msnbc.msn.com\/_news\/2011\/02\/28\/6151083-farewell-to-frank-buckles-last-surviving-us-world-war-i-veteran\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" src=\"http:\/\/msnbcmedia.msn.com\/j\/MSNBC\/Components\/Photo\/_new\/pb-110228-buckles-da.photoblog900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"379\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Buckles in 1917 and 2007 - via NBC<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Buckled certainly had an action-packed life:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Buckles served in England and France, working mainly as a driver and a warehouse clerk. The fact he did not see combat didn&#8217;t diminish his service, he said: &#8220;Didn&#8217;t I make every effort?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>An eager student of culture and language, he used his off-duty hours to learn German, visit cathedrals, museums and tombs, and bicycle in the French countryside&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;In 1941, while on business in the Philippines, Buckles was captured by the Japanese. He spent 3\u00bd years in prison camps.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was never actually looking for adventure,&#8221; Buckles once said. &#8220;It just came to me.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;d often wondered; what must it be like to be the last of&#8230;<em>any <\/em>group, much less a group of nearly five million?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I knew there&#8217;d be only one (survivor) someday. I didn&#8217;t think it would be me,&#8221; he was quoted as saying in recent years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>RIP, Frank Buckles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frank Buckles &#8211; the last surviving American veteran of World War I &#8211; has rejoined the rest of his comrades.\u00a0 He passed away yesterday, age 110. Buckles, who also survived being a civilian POW in the Philippines in World War II, died peacefully of natural causes early Sunday at his home in Charles Town [West [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-memoriam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18462"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18464,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18462\/revisions\/18464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}