BUCKLES COULD BE WEST VIRGINIA'S "LAST MAN" FROM WWI

(11/11/2003)

West Virginia likely has a member of an elite "Last Man Club" for World War I. A Jefferson County farmer, Frank Buckles, now 102, may be the state's last WWI veteran. Friends say he lives a simple farm life. Buckles is among an estimated 200 World War One veterans still living from the four-point-seven million American men and women served in the military during that war. A native of Missouri, he enlisted in the Army in 1917 at age 16. He had various assignments in France, where he recalls that everyone was in mourning. After Armistice Day, Buckles helped escort Prisoners of War back to Germany. Buckles himself became a POW while working for a steamship company in Manila. He was there during the 1941 Japanese invasion. He was freed in 1945. Buckles later married, moved to a farm near Charles Town, West Virginia and raised a daughter. The self-educated man reads books in several languages. While he gets some help with his crops, he continues to mow the fields on his tractor himself.

Hur Herald ®from Sunny Cal The information on these pages, to the extent the law allows, remains the exclusive property of Bob Weaver and Dianne Weaver The Hur Herald. All information may be freely used but must not be sold or used in any type of commercial endeavor, or used on any web site without the express permission of the owners ©Bob and Dianne Weaver, The Hur Herald, 1999, 2000, 2001