A Special Veterans Day

As the son of an infantryman who spent 27 years serving America in the U.S. Army, maybe I feel a special emotion on Veteran’s Day. To honor the 21 million veterans living among us, I wrote a column for National Review about Army Cpl. Frank W. Buckles, the last surviving veteran of World War I who passed away earlier this year. Also, if you are a veteran please join our “Veterans With Newt” coalition by emailing your name, branch, and rank to veterans@newt.org. Thank you for your service to our country.

Sincerely,

Newt Gingrich

A Special Veterans Day
Honoring our troops means supporting them in every way.

By Newt Gingrich

As the son of an infantryman who spent 27 years serving America in the U.S. Army, maybe I feel a special emotion on Veteran’s Day. This holiday, there is a touch of sadness, a sense of historical passing. There was a time when November 11 was called “Armistice Day” to commemorate the ending of “The War to End All Wars,” which we now know as World War I, the first of so many brutal conflicts of the 20th century. After World War II, we changed the purpose of the day to honor all living veterans of all our conflicts, at the same time changing “Decoration Day”– originally a day of remembrance of Union dead from the Civil War — to our “Memorial Day,” to honor all those who served but are no longer with us.

What makes this Veteran’s Day so different is that, earlier this year, our last surviving veteran of World War I passed away and now rests with his comrades at Arlington. Army Cpl. Frank W. Buckles died on Feb. 27, 2011, at the age of 110. He was the last of the 4.7 million Americans who fought in the Great War nearly a century ago. Having joined the ranks of American doughboys at the age of 16 — after being turned down by the Marine Corps for being too small, and rejected by the Navy for having flat feet — Buckles finally convinced an Army captain that he was old enough to enlist. He was so eager to join the conflict that he volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver, having heard that this would place him on a fast track to the front lines in France, where he did indeed come face to face with the ghastly toll of war as he transported the broken bodies of his comrades.

But even after the Armistice, this did not end Buckles’s experience of war. Over two decades later, during World War II, while serving as a civilian shipping contractor in the Philippines, Buckles was captured by the Japanese and became a prisoner of war for more than three years. He lost over 50 pounds during his imprisonment, surviving on a daily diet of only a small amount of mush served in a tin cup the size of a coffee mug that he kept the rest of his life. And now that Buckles is no longer with us, our last link with his generation of warriors has quietly slipped away.

A special thank you to all of the Veterans who put their lives on the line for our safety and freedom on this special day! As the daughter of a late Korean War Veteran myself, this day is a very special day for my family as well. Whenever you attend the funeral of a War Veteran, it is customary that he/she is placed to rest along with a photo in Uniform (along with any medals/awards) because it is the greatest honor to serve your Country in the Military. I can always tell right away when I meet businessmen who are Korean or Vietnam Veterans because they are very special and possess a certain integrity and kindness despite their prominence that is lacking in most others. Having said that, men who serve in the military have a certain strength of character and respect for Country and individuals that we should all learn from.

2011 Veterans Day Tribute

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