The last WWI vet...

Bush thanks WWI veteran for 'love for America'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush met the last known surviving veteran of the first world war on Thursday, thanking the 107-year-old for his service and his "love for America."

Bush called Frank Buckles "the last living doughboy from World War I" and said the centenarian still has a crisp memory.

"Mr. Buckles has a vivid recollection of historic times, and one way for me to honor the service of those who wear the uniform in the past and those who wear it today is to herald you, sir, and to thank you very much for your patriotism and your love for America," the president said, seated with Buckles in the Oval Office.

"We're glad you're here."

Buckles, who turned 107 last month, lied about his age to join the U.S. Army at the age of 16...

This seems so poignant and strange to me. When I was young, the gray-haired distinguished men who ran things were of the WWI Generation. Harry Truman, Ike, the presidents of big corporations. And the handsome young men who were just starting to get on in the world were the WWII generation. Now the men of the AEF are all gone. nd the men and women of WWII are pretty much out of public life. (Except one guy, named Josef Ratzinger!)

There was an old-timer who worked for my dad who fought in WWI. Well, actually, he told me that on his first day in France he got in a knife fight with another southern boy, and that was the end of his war! He chewed tobacco--that was a fascinating thing to a boy. And not snuff; he bit pieces off a chaw. And chewed, and then spit. A bit of history I'm glad to have seen, but don't miss....

One of the last of his cohort

When I was very young, I remember hearing of the death of the last Civil War veteran. He had supposedly been a drummer boy, though there was some doubt about him.

Now, the last American combat-wounded veteran of WWI has died at the age of 108! (Links here and here) There are only about 1,000 American WWI vets left alive.

....Born Jan. 17, 1895, in Everett, Mass., Mr. Pugh raised 16 foster children, played the organ into his 100s and was an avid football and baseball fan.

He is one of 10 veterans profiled in the book, The Price of their Blood, published last month and co-written by Jesse Brown, former U.S. secretary of Veterans Affairs.

He spoke French and was used overseas as an interpreter until the battle in the Argonne forest, when he inhaled mustard gas that left him unconscious and with chronic laryngitis.

After the war he returned to Maine and worked as a railroad telegraph operator for 12 years before delivering mail for 26 years....(Thanks to Dave Trowbridge)

Sounds like quite a guy. Pugh's outfit was the 77th Division. I wrote about them in the Melting Pot Division, the New York City division with an astonishing ethnic variety......The Jews, the Wops, and the Dutch and Irish cops
They're all in the army now!

Doughboys of the 77th divsion wait on the edge of the Argonne Forest, before the attack on September 26, 1918.

It looks like there are two French officers in the upper left corner. (By the way, my interest in WWI has had the result, that I don't find very funny the endless jokes about the fighting qualities of the French. They lost millions in battles whose sustained ferocity we can't even imagine. Likewise, don't sneer about Italians at war until you know something about the Battles of the Isonzo.)

The Melting Pot Division

Reader Ethan Hahn asked rather wistfully if I was going to write any more on the US in WWI. I feel bad for having left off the project. The problem is that much of what is happening (yes I know using the Present Tense is weird, but that's my mood) is too vast and terrifying for me to feel adequate to write about. Hundreds of thousands of my countrymen are attacking enemies who are dug into the intricate and many-layered defenses of the Western Front—that's too big for me to handle. We worry now about several hundred soldiers dying in Iraq, but in a First World War attack, a brigade could lose that many in a minute or two.

But I can work around the edges, and find interesting stories. I picked up a favorite book, The Doughboys, by Lawrence Stallings. He didn't fail to get me started on something...

Men of the 77th Division filling canteens near the River Vesle

THE UNITED STATES IN WORLD WAR ONE #10: The Melting Pot Division

If you doubt that America is and was "something new under the sun," take a look at the 77th Division in 1918. It was called the Liberty Division, and also the Melting Pot Division. They were from New York City, and chose the Statue of Liberty for their patch. 42 languages were spoken by its men. Its gamblers played Stuss, Fan Tan and Piquet, along with Craps and Poker. They said the division had every sort of person except country boys who could find their way around in the dark. "Gangs of New York?" Of course, and General Robert Alexander actually suggested to his officers that they encourage the gang spirit. The division song included the lines:

Thirty dollars every month, deducting twenty-nine
Oh, the army, the army, the democratic army.
The Jews, the Wops, and the Dutch and Irish cops
They're all in the army now!

Its first 3 Distinguished Service Crosses went to Captain Herman Stadie, born in Germany, Private Abraham Herschkovitz, born in a Jewish ghetto in Bessarabia, and Sergeant Sing Kee, born in San Francisco! In their recent attack on the River Vesle, Sergeant Kee was one of a 30-man message post in the village of Mont Notre Dame. The other 29 men were killed or wounded, a fact he didn't think worth reporting. He continued alone for 24 hours, and all messages got through. (In WWI, runners, messengers, were extremely important. Technology had expanded the size of the battlefield enormously, but had not yet provided portable radios.)

One interesting thing is that a lot of the doughboys spoke German. If we fought a war with Spain today, the situation would be similar. Germans were the largest of our many immigrant groups, and there were then over 100 newspapers published in German in the US. (Most of those papers shut down or switched to English because of the war.)

Like the United States itself, the Liberty Division was a conglomeration that tended to draw the contempt of "older and wiser" countries. It seemed to them like little more than an ad hoc collection of refugees. In fact, like its nation, it was a brutally effective new combination. In time of need it could instantly generate remarkable leaders from out of the ranks, an ability it will demonstrate to the fullest next month, when some of its companies form the fabled "Lost Battalion," during the grim Meuse-Argonne campaign.

Right now, in August and September 1918, American 1st and 3rd Corps are fighting under French General Ferdinand Foch in the cluster of battles and offensives called the Second Battle of the Marne. Nine doughboy divisions (equivalent in size to perhaps twenty French or British divisions) will suffer 50,00 casualties. The 77th, part of Ligget's 1st Corps, will help drive the Germans back to the Aisne, erasing the deep salient they had achieved in their Spring offensive. Belleau Wood was the farthest tip of that salient, and that fight, back in June, was the beginning of what the 77th Division is now helping to finish.

The ever-increasing numbers and experience of the Americans has now put General Pershing in a position to demand what he has long wanted—an independent American army with its own sector of the front to cover. However, since we have been strong supporters of a unified allied command, and since that effort has finally led to General Foch being named Supreme Allied Commander, Pershing is in no position to decline whatever task is assigned to the new First Army. What he gets is hair-raising. The Americans, as he has requested, will drive the Germans from the Saint-Mihiel Salient, attacking September 12. Then the entire 1st Army will drag itself and a million tons of ammunition and supplies 60 miles over wretched country roads for an all-out attack on the Meuse-Argonne sector...on September 26!