Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times

Frank Woodruff Buckles became a soldier in 1917 at the age of 16 as World War I was raging. He now lives on a farm in Charles Town, W.Va, and is one of only a few World War I veterans alive. He is the last to have actually served in France and Germany.

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CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- Frank Woodruff Buckles kept up with some of his old World War I buddies -- and that's not a misprint, we don't mean "World War II buddies" -- through a veterans newsletter called The Torch.

"On each issue ... 4,734,991 American veterans fought in World War I," Buckles recited from memory. "Today, there are ... and then there would be some number. When it got down to just a few, I thought, 'Hey, I'm going to be one of the last.' "

Today, on Veterans Day, Buckle, 106, is one of three surviving American-born World War I veterans. He is the last to have actually served in France and Germany during a conflict that saw 75 million people fight, 20 million die and which became known for an all-too-brief period as the "War to End All Wars."

Worldwide, only 22 World War I veterans are known to be alive.

Veterans Day traces its origin to the armistice that ended World War I, which came on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. By that day, Buckles, who had lied his way into the Army at age 16, had sailed to England on board a ship that rescued Titanic survivors, had driven an ambulance in England and had served as a driver for officers in France.

After the armistice, he escorted German prisoners back to Germany and would one day meet the man who led American forces, Gen. John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing. Later, he worked for a steamship company and was held captive in the Philippines for three years by the Japanese.

He keeps a busy schedule. He has been profiled by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today and NBC. Last week, despite an overnight stay in a Winchester, Va., hospital for a digestive problem, he sat through more lengthy interviews, including one with CBS radio, as he prepared for a trip to Arlington National Cemetery for a Veterans Day program Saturday. He planned to visit Pershing's grave.

During last year's Veterans Day celebration in Arlington, he told people, "I'll see you next year." What was he expected to tell them this year?

After a pause, he said with a soft chuckle, "I'll try not to say too much."

Life on the farm

Buckles has lived for the past 53 years in an 18th-century stone farmhouse on a 330-acre cattle farm in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, less than 90 minutes from Washington, D.C., and about 3 ¹₂ hours north of Roanoke. He lives with his daughter and son-in-law, Susannah and Mike Flanagan.

Over the past seven or eight years, Susannah Flanagan, just 52 (born when her dad was 54), has been pressed into service as her father's press secretary, handling the increasing number of phone calls and media inquiries from people who want to meet one of the last of a generation. She hands out four-page biographies of her father's life to visitors.

She calls him "Papa," as does caregiver Barbara Norman, who has worked for the family for seven months. When she started, she didn't know much about World War I.

She does now.

"The company I work for just told me that I'd be taking care of a 106-year-old man," Norman said. "I wasn't expecting Papa. He doesn't look it, and he doesn't act it. He loves to talk, and he loves company."

Sitting in his cozy study and library, surrounded by a few volumes of Spanish, French and German -- all languages Buckles speaks -- the old soldier is the picture of dignity in a tweed jacket and flannel shirt. His thin white hair sweeps up in back like a rising tide. His eyes are blue and sharp, his oval face fleshy and ruddy.

He doesn't get around as well as he used to, and he speaks slowly and softly, his speech bracketed with pauses partly because of his age, but mostly because he likes to think before he speaks.

He still has the heavy wool uniform and winter coat he wore while serving in France in 1918. He say he's the same weight now he was when he was a soldier.

"One hundred, forty-four pounds," he said. "Welterweight."

He has come a long way since he was a gung-ho teenager ready for action in the frontier town of Oakwood, Okla. Born in Missouri, he learned responsibility at an early age, working on his father's farm. The family moved in 1916 to Oklahoma, where Buckles worked as a bank clerk at age 15.

He also kept up with the newspapers. He had read about the Titanic's sinking in 1912, and he had followed Pershing's legendary pursuit of Mexican bandit Pancho Villa. He also read about the war.

When the United States entered Europe's "Great War" on April 6, 1917, Buckles saw the recruiting posters go up in the post office. He still remembers Uncle Sam pointing directly at him, telling the boy, "I Want You."

He tried to get into the Marines twice, but they turned him away because he was too young. He tried the Navy, but they said he was flat-footed (and too young).

His last hope was the U.S. Army, which told him he needed to produce a birth certificate. The sly teen convinced the Army that Missouri kept no public records of births. He told them he was 18 and that his name and birth date were recorded in a family Bible back home.

On April 14, 1917, Buckles became a soldier.

"I didn't feel so young," he said. "I was 16."

The war

He was sent to Fort Riley, Kan., and joined the First Fort Riley Casual Detachment. He sailed for England in December 1917, on board the Carpathia, which had rescued Titanic survivors. Buckles remembered that the crewmen liked to regale the young soldiers with their rescue stories.

While in England, Buckles drove an ambulance, motorcycles with sidecars and a Ford car for dignitaries. He went to France, but did not see combat. After the armistice of Nov. 11, 1918, he transported prisoners of war back to Germany.

"They were well-disciplined," he said of the German prisoners. "They were no problem, I'll say that for them."

He remained in Europe until 1920, when he was discharged and paid $143.90, plus a $60 bonus. No GI Bill of Rights existed to help veterans find their way back into civilian life.

A few weeks after he arrived home, on Feb. 10, 1920, Buckles heard that Pershing was going to be honored at a reception in Oklahoma City. He dressed in full uniform and went to the Skirvin Hotel, where he stood in a receiving line to meet Pershing.

"I gave a snappy salute and clicked my heels together the proper way," Buckles remembered.

Pershing was impressed with the young soldier. "Where were you born?" the general asked.

"Harrison County, Missouri," Buckles replied.

The general beamed. "Just 43 miles as the crow flies from Linn County where I was born."

The rest is history

Buckles traveled the world after the war. He worked for White Star Line, the same shipping company that had built the Titanic.

In 1940, he was assigned to expedite cargo movements in the Philippines. He was there when the Japanese invaded and drove out the Americans in December 1941.

Ironically, the action-thirsty foot soldier who never saw combat as a youth became a prisoner of war as a 40-year-old American businessman. He was held in the notorious prison at the Los Banos agricultural school, where he was rescued by the 11^th Airborne Division in 1945.

"I weighed 144 pounds when I went in," Buckles said. "When I got down to 100 pounds, I stopped weighing."

He married at 45 -- which would be considered late in life for most people -- and he and his wife, Audrey, 19 years his junior, moved to West Virginia in 1954. Buckles' ancestors had lived nearby in the 1700s before the westward migration.

When Audrey died in 1999, Buckles confided to his daughter, "We did not expect this." He never dreamed he would outlive his wife.

Now, he is one of the last. He has all the spoils of a long life well-lived -- a beautiful home, a loving family and a trove of stories and honors. Former French President Jacques Chirac bestowed the French Legion of Honor upon him 1999. He has even outlived The Torch, the old newsletter that allowed him to keep track of the waning World War I population.

The story of World War I has been overshadowed by what came a generation later, when World War II gave the world a new era of heroes. Buckles doesn't think many young people know anything at all about the tsunami of violence and death that consumed a continent nine decades ago.

"It's the fault of the schools, really," he said. "When I ask a young person what they learned of World War I in school, some say nothing at all. Some say, 'My great-grandfather was in World War I.' "

At 106, he's the youngest of the surviving World War I vets. The other two are Russell Coffey, 109, of Ohio and Harry Richard Landis, 107, of Florida.

A few weeks ago, he received a call from a relative in the Midwest, who informed Buckles that one of his distant cousins just turned 109, which means that the old soldier who is the last of a breed, the last of a generation, isn't even the oldest person in his own family.

"I'd better enjoy it," he said. "Can't do anything else."