Flint college students plan trip to meet America's last living WW1 veteran

By Beata Mostafavi | Flint Journal

April 04, 2010, 12:00PM

David J. DeJonge
America's last surviving WW1 veteran Frank Buckles in his home in West Virginia.

FLINT, Michigan — He keeps mostly to himself on a quiet, sprawling farm in West Virginia where he just celebrated his 109th birthday.

He still does sit-ups, uses a magnifier to read treasured books and rode a tractor until he was 104.

And every year, hundreds of visitors knock on Frank Buckles’ door simply to meet America’s last surviving WW1 veteran.

Now four local college students — two of whom served in Iraq — plan to make the 1,000-mile, 16-hour journey round-trip to visit Buckles just for a day.

Their mission: To say thank you.

“He’s a living piece of history,” said University of Michigan-Flint student and Iraq veteran Cameron Waites, 29, who is heading the trip at the end of this month.

“That fact that he is still with us today says a lot about his strength and spirit. The older these veterans are, the more urgent it seems that we thank them. It’s the respectable thing to do.”

Waites and fellow UM-Flint student and veteran Jeremy Glasstetter, along with their girlfriends Nicole Terry and Anna Dutcher, are creating their own history lesson and traveling to Buckles’ historic farm near Charles Town, W.Va.

Of being the last standing in history among millions of Americans who served in the Great War, Buckles says on his Web site, “By fate I have become the last.”

“This entire planet would be drastically different if he and others hadn’t done their part,” said Waites, who served as an Army medic in Iraq as part of the surge from April 2007 to June 2008. “People thank me when they find out I’m a veteran. The more I’m on the receiving end of thank yous, the more I want to thank somebody who really deserves it.

“Mr. Buckles just seems like the epitome of the kind of person a veteran would be — honorable and humble.”

The UM-Flint visitors appear to be among Buckles’ youngest guests, excluding children who come with parents or schools.

Most requests to meet Buckles come from people 40 years old and over, said Buckles’ spokesman David DeJonge, who is making a documentary about the vet.

“He’s modest and patriotic and America and the world could not have asked for a better ambassador to represent that generation,” DeJonge said. “He’s our last witness and he takes that responsibility seriously. He wants this generation to be remembered.”

Even though Buckles has slowed down — no longer physically able to provide autographs, getting tired more quickly and taking longer to recall some facts —he still enjoys occasional visitors who usually meet with him in his personal library, DeJonge said.

“He likes to hear about people’s lives and where they’ve come from to visit him,” DeJonge said. “He shares some stories. He just has an amazing will to live.”

The only subject that’s off limits is the three years Buckles’ spent as a prisoner of war. Buckles was a civilian shipping company worker in Manila, Philippines when he was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and was taken to a prison camp until his rescue in 1945.

Buckles, who lied about his age so he could sneak into the Army at age 16,  was not in combat but his job driving the wounded in an ambulance back from the front was considered very dangerous.

He has accidentally become famous in the last decade. The only two other WW1 vets known to be living are also 109 years old, including Choules Stanley, of Australia and Britain’s Florence Green who served as a waitress. 

Buckles has been quoted in The Washington Post as saying the secret to his long life is “Hope,” and “I never got in a hurry,” advising others that when “you start to die... don’t.”

DeJonge said Buckles still uses an exercise peddler everyday, remains passionate about books and history, and as the honorary chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation, he is fighting for a WW1 memorial  in Washington DC.

The UM-Flint group plans to present Buckles with an appreciation gift and also learn from a hero.

“As a veteran, it’s important that we honor those vets who have gone before us,” said Glasstetter, 35, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and who is the national director of the Student Veterans of America. “Mr. Buckles  bridges the generational gap between millennial veterans and WW1 veterans.

“I would like to know how his life has changed for the better because of his service and take that message and try to live my life in a similar manner by being grateful and taking nothing for granted.”