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The Search For America's World War I Veterans

They are a vanishing breed. Time is running out to find and recognize the last remaining veterans of "The Great War."

In a voice as strong as men 30 years younger, Frank Buckles, a spry 105-year-old, describes his personal experiences with a sense of pride and, at the same time, wonderment. His story isn't wonder, though—it's fact.

He sailed on the ship that rescued survivors of the Titanic. He met the famous World War I General John “Black Jack” Pershing. He was an ambulance driver and a motorcyclist. At age 16, he became a veteran of World War I, the “War to End All Wars.”

In the war after that, he was a POW.

“I've always been independent,” Buckles said. “And as a boy of 16, I was anxious to get to France.” The lad from Harrison County, Mo., made it to France. And he made it home. Now, he's one of 17 known American veterans of World War I who are still living.


WW I veteran Lloyd Brown
rides down Pennsylvania Avenue during the 2006 Memorial Day
Parade in Washington, DC. The rolls of World War I veterans have declined so rapidly that the day is fast approaching when there will be one remaining, then none. VA, with assistance from historians, state agencies and others, is keeping a roster of those veterans.

One key player helping keep track of them is William Everett, an independent radio producer in South Padre Island, Texas.

Everett, a World War I aficionado, is producing for National Public Radio a two-hour special on World War I veterans that will air this Veterans Day. Hosted by Walter Cronkite, the “WWI Living History Project” will feature interviews with Buckles and other veterans of “The Great War.”


“World War I is such an under-appreciated American conflict,” Everett said. It's his mission to “tell the story through their experiences, but honor them in the process.” But with only 16 known veterans, it is difficult to capture their experiences.



His task is to conduct interviews with as many veterans—and their family members—as possible. “It's like a jigsaw puzzle scattered around the country, but there are only (16) pieces left. And only three of those can talk about their experiences in trench warfare. There are no aviators left,” no one who can describe firsthand what the early days of aviation warfare were like.

Everett 's quest to track down World War I veterans began about three years ago, when he learned there were only about 250 remaining. His research eventually led him to VA resources; namely, VA's Office of Public Affairs and its director of media products, Chris Scheer.

“I have attempted to develop a definitive list of living World War I vets for VA purposes,” Scheer said. He exchanged names “within privacy limits” with Everett and another researcher, author Richard Rubin, to help generate a “final wave of awareness and interest in our quest to develop a list of living World War I veterans” and to attract the interest of those in the veterans community who will “work with us to identify those veterans.”

And from there, it took off.

Everett 's detective work was ratcheted up significantly last November, when the idea of the radio special gelled. Using the Internet and contacting other WWI buffs and writers, he began connecting with WWI veterans and their families.

One of them was George Johnson, California 's last WWI veteran. (Sadly, Johnson died August 30, 2006, at the age of 112.)

Then there's Samuel Goldberg, 106. “He's a healthy, vigorous man,” Everett recalled. A member of the U.S. Horse Cavalry during WWI, Goldberg lives in Rhode Island.

“I'm looking for everyday life experiences—not war heroes—to help make their experiences relatable to today's listener,” Everett said. But the bad food, monotony and military discipline of a century gone by are probably just as meaningful to today's troops.

Rubin, who has interviewed 34 WWI veterans for his book, Last of the Doughboys, talked about the importance of honoring all veterans and acknowledged that Americans have tried hard to recognize Vietnam and Korean War veterans in the last 20 years or so. But he notes there is still time to honor those veterans; with WWI veterans, “time is running out,” he said.

Everett believes there may be other WWI veterans out there, perhaps in private nursing homes or in the care of family members. If they didn't receive VA benefits or weren't featured in local news coverage, that possibility exists. Scheer wants VA employees to be aware that the search continues for information about any remaining WWI veterans and that information can be relayed to him in VA headquarters.

“I'll bet there's more out there,” Scheer said.

Indeed there may be. If you know of any WWI veterans in your area, you can contact VA's Office of Public Affairs in Washington, DC, at opaweb@va.gov.

WW I veteran Lloyd Brown
meets two members of today's military.



Adapted from "The Search for Our World War I Veterans"
By Tom Thomas
July/August 2006 Edition of VAnguard