Monday, February 28, 2011

Frank Buckles,"Last man standing" Among "The Doughboys" Dies




Last U.S. World War I veteran dies

By Paul Courson, CNN
February 28, 2011 1:40 a.m. EST

Washington (CNN) -- Frank Buckles, the last U.S. World War I veteran, has died, a spokesman for his family said Sunday. He was 110.

Buckles "died peacefully in his home of natural causes" early Sunday morning, the family said in a statement sent to CNN late Sunday by spokesman David DeJonge.
Buckles marked his 110th birthday on February 1, but his family had earlier told CNN he had slowed considerably since last fall, according his daughter Susannah Buckles Flanagan, who lives at the family home near Charles Town, West Virginia.

Buckles, who served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe during what became known as the "Great War," rose to the rank of corporal before the war ended. He came to prominence in recent years, in part because of the work of DeJonge, a Michigan portrait photographer who had undertaken a project to document the last surviving veterans of that war.

As the years continued, all but Buckles had passed away, leaving him the "last man standing" among U.S. troops who were called "The Doughboys."

DeJonge found himself the spokesman and advocate for Buckles in his mission to see to it that his comrades were honored with a monument on the National Mall, alongside memorials for veterans of World War II and the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

Buckles made history when he was asked to testify in Congress on the matter before a House committee on December 3, 2009.

"I have to," he told CNN when he came to Washington, as part of what he considered his responsibility to honor the memory of fellow-veterans.

Buckles, after World War I ended, took up a career as a ship's officer on merchant vessels. He was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and held prisoner of war for more than three years before he was freed by U.S. troops.
Never saying much about his POW experience, Buckles instead wanted attention drawn to the plight of the D.C. War Memorial. During a visit to the run-down, neglected site a few years ago, he went past the nearby World War II memorial without stopping, even as younger veterans stopped and saluted the old soldier in his wheelchair as he went by.

Renovations to the structure began last fall, but Buckles, with his health already failing, could not make a trip to Washington to review the improvements. The National Park Service is overseeing efforts that include replacing a neglected walkway and dressing up a deteriorated dome and marble columns.
Details for services and arrangements will be announced in the days ahead, the family statement said.

Flanagan, his daughter, said preliminary plans began weeks ago, with the Military District of Washington expressing its support for an honors burial at Arlington, including an escort platoon, a horse-drawn casket arrival, a band and a firing party.

"It has long been my father's wish to be buried in Arlington, in the same cemetery that holds his beloved General Pershing," Flanagan wrote as she began to prepare for the inevitable in a letter she sent to home-state U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia.

"I feel confident that the right thing will come to pass," she said.
In addition to graveside ceremonies, a proposal from U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, calls for a memorial in the U.S. Capitol, where Buckles' casket would be displayed with honors.

Buckles in 2008 attended Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington at the grave of Gen. John Pershing, the commander of U.S. troops during World War I.
He also had met with then-President George W. Bush at the White House, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon.

"The First World War is not well understood or remembered in the United States," Gates said at the time. "There is no big memorial on the National Mall. Hollywood has not turned its gaze in this direction for decades. Yet few events have so markedly shaped the world we live in."

Buckles' family asks that donations be made to the National World War I Legacy Project to honor Frank Buckles and the 4,734,991 Americans that he served with during World War I. Details can be found at: www.frankbuckles.org

32 comments:

  1. We will hear more about Natalie Portman than Frank Buckles, but on the last day of the month that used to be called February in 2011, a real American Patriot died. Good Luck on you Frank Buckles.

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  2. A life lived in a full 110 years. Amazing.

    23 years ago when Mr. Buckles was 87 or 88, he looked 68. His life would make a nice movie, although one would never believe that it was a true story.

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  3. On the other hand, to all who thought Ted Kennedy was a piece of dog shit and anything but a patriot, you were right.

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  4. Some truths are eternal, Q, and while their repetition may be boring, they are still relevant truths.

    I get the "shit" from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, that's where the charge of murdering Jewish souls comes fom.

    That the Story of "o" supports their murder while disdaining the position of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, as relevant today as it was when first brought up.

    It goes to the core truth about the State of Israel.

    Its' following of the Nuremberg Laws, as regarding the definition of a Jew, in Europe.

    Following the NAZI standard, rather than the Judaic one, in that regard.

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  5. It goes to the core truth about the State of Israel.


    As well as the truth about the Story of "o".

    Defending the murder of Jewish souls, as defined by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, as the equivalent of wearing a rubber.

    The murder of Jewish souls, the equivalent of beating your meat.

    Shocking, in all reality, for a self-professed Jew to make such a claim, but there it is.

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  6. The Associated Press

    CAIRO - Egypt's top prosecutor seized all the funds of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak and his family on Monday and banned them from travel abroad, the latest humiliation for the once-powerful family.

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  7. WWII vets are dropping like flies now, get their stories first, if they are willing, because when the living memories are gone, there's only records, and records will fade, or they will be "re-habilitated" to make them PC.

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  8. Protesters shot as violence spreads to Oman

    Police shot dead two demonstrators as the wave of protests sweeping the Arab world engulfed the normally placid sultanate of Oman.

    Police opened fire with rubber bullets as protesters tried to storm a police station. Five others were wounded.

    The protests in Sohar, more than 200km northwest of Muscat, prompted Sultan Qaboos to introduce swift appeasing measures, including the provision of jobs for 50,000 citizens and unemployment benefits.

    Protesters demanding jobs, pay rises and measures to curb corruption razed the Sohar Governor's house and a police station.

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  9. Another Wahhabi Autocrat going down.

    Or at least "Under Pressure"

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  10. Rat, please put up or shut up...

    Please show anywhere that I am "pro-abortion"

    Now we all KNOW you are pro-murder, you have admitted that you have personally murdered people in Central America, that you supposedly were a MERC working for Ollie North, as an private contractor.

    Your point about israel and it's legal abortion rights are no different from the nation of America.

    If Israel is a "nazi" enterprise, so is America.

    cant have it both ways.

    But dont let fact stand in your way...

    You still have not responded to the point of the last thread where you state things NEVER said and then take those points as arguing facts..

    Very Rules for Radical of you.

    But the truth?

    You are a liar and a bully...

    No news story there...

    You hate Israel and Zionism

    No news story there...

    You personalize your attacks on me?

    No news story there...

    i shall still hope on day soon you will fall from your horse and depart this world, sadly evil shits like you typically live long and black hearted lives...

    We then, live long and suffer jackhole...

    israel is...

    And the good news?

    your brothers? the arabs? are offing one another at greater rates than ever before...

    AND thanks to you, and I do mean you, you have motivated me to send funds to:

    Women's
    health In Israel



    Thanks for you concern about jewish Souls.

    But maybe you should look into America where MILLIONS of fetuses are terminated on a yearly basis

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  11. Rat, how many babies have you killed?

    How many has your wife?

    Your daughter?

    Did some Jewish guy knock up your wife?

    Is that what made you so pissed?

    Please explain, we all want to know..

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  12. Rat is obsessed with Israel, so much that he has called me a muslim!

    Wow...

    I call rat a self confessed killer... that he offed people in central america..

    He never disputes this...

    Glosses over it...

    I never have had an abortion, never paid for one, never had a wife or daughter ever have one..

    Tell us Rat, why the anger?

    Get shafted from a job by a Jew?

    Lose a wife or a girlfriend to a Jew?

    Daughter MARRY a Jew?

    lol

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  13. I have never confessed to murder, that is another libelous fabrication written in the Story of "o".

    Enough said, about that.

    We should, instead, return to the murderous rampage against Jewish souls, subsidized by the State of Israel.

    As it empowers the continued ratification of that last vestige of NAZI influence in Europe, the Nuremberg Laws.

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  14. NYTimes — Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces struck back on three fronts on Monday, using fighter jets, special forces units and regular army troops in an escalation of hostilities that brought Libya closer to civil war.

    The attacks by the colonel’s troops on an oil refinery in central Libya and on cities on either side of the country unsettled rebel leaders — who earlier had claimed they were close to liberating the country — and showed that despite defections by the military, the government still possessed powerful assets, including fighter pilots willing to bomb Libyan cities.

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  15. The 5th Fleet could ground the Colonel's Air Power, in about ten minutes.

    Keep it grounded, indefinitely.

    We spent a lot of money to achieve that capability ...
    and to maintain it.

    Wonder why we do not use it, if the Colonel is an enemy of the national interests of the United States?

    He has been thought of, as that, for most of my life.

    Why do we allow him air superiority?

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  16. U.S. Readies Military Options on Libya

    "WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has begun repositioning Navy warships to support possible action against Libya, as it accelerates planning on a range of options if asked by President Obama to intervene in the conflict there, officials said. "

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/world/africa/01military.html?hp

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  17. Rat: We should, instead, return to the murderous rampage against Jewish souls, subsidized by the State of Israel.


    One standard for Israel, none for anyone else.

    That is what makes you an anti-semite

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  18. desert rat said...
    I have never confessed to murder, that is another libelous fabrication written in the Story of "o".


    Nonsense...

    You claimed with pride your killing people in Central America with Ollie North...

    As for your obsession with porn?

    It reeks in every statement you make, thank you for proving to the group that you may not use swear words, however your words are far worse and more vulgar than anyone else on this site.

    As for libel, every post about me or Israel from your lips is a libel...

    But to stay on topic.

    One standard for Israel, none for anyone else..

    Otherwise America, which pays for millions of abortions should be demonized along with all nations that provide women's services...

    Tell me Ishmael do you want FGM next as well?

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  19. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone else who represents them to him.

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  20. Worm-less Rat and Wormy Rat, you don't have to be abrasive, condescending or intimidating in order to be confidently articulate, intelligent and stridently stand your own ground by having reasonably intelligible opinions.

    I know it's unfashionable in our quarters to look towards 'nature', but I can't helping thinking it's a mixture of socialization and testosterone.

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  21. Again the Story of "o" wishes to confuse the reader. Wanting them to think that the means of the murder of Jewish souls is what is important, rather than the murder of Jewish souls being paramount.

    Again he tries to conflate the effect, the murder of Jewish souls with the method of the murder, as if it made a difference.

    No, the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has said that the murder of Jewish souls runs rampant in Israel and it is subsidized by the State of Israel.

    No where is this truth denied by the Story of "o", he only tries to justify the means of the murder.

    Dismissing the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the value of those murdered Jewish souls, all at the same time.

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  22. In his need to defend abortion, he diminishes Judaism and the value of Jewish life.

    Caught in the paradox of thinking that befuddles the post modern politically correct liberal NAZI.

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  23. The abortion thing is so damn BORING.

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  24. It is not about abortion, Ms T.

    It is about the Jewish souls that the Chief Rabbinate says were murdered. Not the method of the murder, but the motive.

    Root causes of genocide of Jewish souls, in Israel.

    While non-Judaic immigrants are permitted to enter Israel, under the standard set by NAZIs, in the Nuremberg Laws.

    What other nation in Europe or the "West" still uses NAZI standards of blood purity during application for social services?

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  25. National Socialism lives on, in Israel.

    Though their application of the Nuremberg Laws as a central tenet of their immigration policy.

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  26. Murdering the native born Jewish souls, so that non-Jewish adults can be allocated living space to facilitate their migration to Israel, that is a core part of Israeli State population policy.

    There is only so much room, in Israel, those Europeon migrants need the space, more than the Israeli need native born Jewish souls.

    Many of those 1.5 million Jewish souls that have been murdered in Israel, since 1948, cleansed so that Russians could migrate, south to the Mediterranean shoreline.

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  27. Rat, according to Torah, man needs the breath of life to become a living soul, I need to smack that Rabbi.

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  28. I do not claim to be more knowledgeable on Judaic Standards than the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, Ms T.

    I discount your claims to a higher knowledge of his religion, as well.

    Whether or not you should smack him, problematic.

    I do believe that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel best knows Judaism. Their determinations are more valued to the discussion of the state of the State of Israel than any irrational rants from an anonymous poster.

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  29. Not to imply, Ms T, that you are an irrationally ranting anonymous poster.

    Not at all.

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