[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 3, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H525-H526]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1700
             THE LAST DOUGHBOY AND THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bright). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. They called it the ``war to end all wars''; 4.7 
million Americans went over there to Europe in the great World War I, 
and 116,000 of them never came home. When they arrived back in the 
United States in 1918, thousands of them died from the flu that they 
had contracted in France. They called them ``doughboys'' because of the 
look of their uniform. One such person was an individual by the name of 
Frank Buckles.
  Frank Buckles lied to get into the United States Army. He was 16. And 
he went from recruiter to recruiter to recruiter and finally convinced 
somebody he was 21. He got into the United States Army and went over 
there with the doughboys to end the war to end all wars. He drove an 
ambulance and rescued other Americans who were fighting that great war. 
He said, We were typical cocky Americans. No one wanted us around until 
the French and the British needed some help winning that war. And just 
19 months after the first Yanks arrived, the guns fell silent.
  Yes, that war ended on November 11, 1918. But that wasn't all for 
Frank Buckles. After he was discharged from the United States Army in 
1918, he found himself in a place called Manila in the Philippines on 
December 8, 1941, when the Japanese attacked--the day after Pearl 
Harbor--and Frank Buckles was captured by the Japanese. For the next 39 
months he was held as a prisoner of war in a Japanese concentration 
camp. He was finally freed on February 23, 1945, the day the Japanese 
had ordered his execution.
  Frank Buckles is the last surviving doughboy from World War I. On 
Monday, he was 109 years old. He lives not far from here. Until he was 
101, he drove his tractor on his farm in West Virginia. At this time I 
would like to insert into the Record a letter he wrote to the American 
people on Memorial Day of last year.

  Last World War I Vet Frank Buckles' Memorial Day Letter to Americans

     (The following is a letter from Frank Buckles to the American 
         Veterans Center and National Memorial Day Parade on 
         Memorial Day, 2009.)
       Dear Americans: Though I am unable to be in our great 
     nation's capitol today to pay honor to the many men and women 
     who have fought and died protecting our freedom, I want you 
     to know the depth of my gratitude to our service members and 
     the deep personal significance Memorial Day has to me.
       In 1918, I was sure there would never be another world war. 
     But just 23 years later--the day after Pearl Harbor--I became 
     one of 2,000 civilians who would spend the next 3 and a half 
     years in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines.
       I was born in 1901 during the McKinley Administration in 
     the heartland of America. I was thirteen when World War I 
     broke out in Europe. For me the decision to join the service 
     was an easy one. The hard part was finding someone who'd let 
     me join.
       I was just 16 and didn't look a day older. I confess to you 
     that I lied to more than one recruiter. I gave them my solemn 
     word that I was 18, but I'd left my birth certificate back 
     home in the family Bible. They'd take one look at me and 
     laugh and tell me to home before my mother noticed I was 
     gone.
       Somehow I got the idea that telling an even bigger whopper 
     was the way to go. So I told the next recruiter that I was 21 
     and darned if he didn't sign me up on the spot! I enlisted in 
     the Army on the 14th of August 1917. As a 16-year-old boy, 
     you think you're invincible and I wanted to go where the 
     action was.
       One of the older sergeants told me the fastest way to get 
     to France was to go into the Ambulance Corps. So that's what 
     I did. There was never a shortage of blown-up bodies that 
     needed to be rushed to the nearest medical care. The British 
     and French troops were in bad shape--even guys about my age 
     looked old and tired.
       After three years of living and dying inside a dirt trench, 
     you know the Brits and French were happy to see us 
     ``doughboys.'' Every last one of us Yanks believed we'd wrap 
     this thing up in a month or two and head back home before 
     harvest. In other words, we were the typical, cocky Americans 
     no one wants around, until they need help winning a war.
       But that's what makes America special--as much as we want 
     to avoid war, we're ready to sacrifice everything if that's 
     what it takes to make sure the bad guys don't win. America's 
     entry into the war was decisive. Just 19 months after the 
     first Yanks arrived, the guns fell silent.
       The Armistice commenced on the 11th hour of the 11th day of 
     the llth month and battered troops on both sides crawled out 
     of their trenches for the last time. When the armistice came, 
     I thought the Europeans would be dancing in the streets. 
     After the Armistice, I was assigned to deliver German POWs 
     back to their homeland. Looking at their war-weary faces, I 
     never dreamed that one day I'd find myself in the same 
     position--but in much worse circumstances.
       On December 7, 1941, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor. Even 
     before Congress declared war on Japan, young American men 
     were lining up to enlist. At the time, I was working in the 
     Manila office for a shipping firm called the White Star Line.
       White Star was the line that had owned the Titanic. White 
     Star also owned the Carpathian--the ship that had rescued the 
     Titanic's survivors . . . and the Carpathian was also the 
     ship that had taken me to the battlefields of France in 1917. 
     You know, looking back I think I should have seen all those 
     White Star connections as an omen of things to come. But I 
     didn't.
       The Axis war in Europe and Asia had been going on for the 
     last several years. But General MacArthur had assured us that 
     Manila was the safest city in the Orient. MacArthur was a 
     great general, but this time he guessed wrong.
       On December 8th, just one day after Pearl Harbor, a 
     Japanese invasion took control of Manila. The Japanese took 
     thousands of us foreigners to Los Banos, a prison camp 40 
     miles southeast of Manila. Along with 2,000 other foreign 
     civilians, I was designated a prisoner of war.
       For the next 3 and a half years, my fellow POW's and I had 
     only two things on our minds. We wondered when MacArthur was 
     going to return and how we were going to find something to 
     fill our stomachs. The starvation at Los Banos was so bad, it 
     is surprising that any of us survived. When The 11th Airborne 
     finally freed us on February 23, 1945, we all looked pretty 
     much like skeletons with skin on.
       America goes to war to free, to liberate, to protect, and 
     to bring justice to bear. I hope this Memorial Day, you take 
     the time to thank the veterans you meet for their service to 
     this country--the sacrifices that they have made to preserve 
     your freedom.
       May God bless you and God bless America!

                                                Frank Buckles,

                                            Corporal, World War I,
                                              U.S. Army (Retired).

  After World War I was over with, that generation went into the 
Roaring Twenties, then the Great Depression, and then they were the 
fathers of the Greatest Generation that went off to the great World War 
II.
  I mention Frank Buckles for several reasons. He's the last surviving 
doughboy. This is a picture of him that was taken not too long ago in 
front of the D.C. World War Memorial that's on the Mall. Now Frank 
Buckles is spending

[[Page H526]]

the rest of his life trying to do something for those doughboys in 
World War I. You see, on the great National Mall we have a memorial for 
the veterans of Vietnam, for the veterans of Korea, and for the 
veterans of the Greatest Generation, the World War II Memorial. But 
there is no memorial for the doughboys of World War I who served in 
these United States. In fact, this monument, this memorial for D.C. 
World War I veterans, is in the weeds. It's not taken care of by the 
Park Service.
  And so what we are planning and what Frank Buckles desires is to have 
an expansion of this memorial and expand it to include all of those who 
served in the great World War I. He says, I feel as the last survivor a 
responsibility to bring recognition to all of the millions who fought 
in that war and are gone. I intend to give all my efforts and time I 
have left to see that a national memorial of World War I joins the 
other memorials on the National Mall. I am dismayed that this country 
has erected memorials for World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, yet there 
is no memorial for the war to end all wars.
  So what we should do, Members of Congress and Mr. Speaker, we should 
erect a memorial for that war that occurred in the last century. We 
should erect it for the doughboys of that generation; for Frank 
Buckles, who is 109 years old, the last surviving doughboy. We owe it 
to them. There are no lobbyists for the World War I Memorial. 
Everybody's died. The only lobbyists are Members of Congress and 
schoolchildren throughout this country, like Creekwood Middle School in 
Kingwood, Texas, that's raising money to pay for the memorial on the 
National Mall.
  And so what we as Members of Congress do and need to do is to honor 
these great Americans that served in that great war--that war that we 
don't even talk much about in our history books anymore. We owe it to 
them. We owe it to Frank Buckles. We owe it to those doughboys.
  And that's just the way it is.

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