Belated Veteran's Day Salute to the Last Surviving U.S. WWI Overseas Vet

The Hedgehog Blog gives a belated Veteran's Day salute and thank you to Frank Buckles, age 106, living on his farm near Charles Town, West Virginia, and identified by Richard Rubin in this article in the New York Times as very likely our country's last surviving veteran of overseas service during World War I. Of course, Veteran's Day began as Armstice Day, a national holiday declared by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 to commemorate the end of the Great War. Only in 1954 was the name of the holiday changed, to honor all American veterans.

One of the facts that make me aware of my age is that America's entry into World War I on April 6, 1917 is now farther in the past than the outbreak of the Civil War, with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), was at the time of my birth in 1951. When I was a boy, there were still a handful of surviving Civil War veterans. Best wishes to Frank Buckles, apparently our lone surviving veteran who saw service in France in the First World War, to see many more Veteran's Days before he answers his last bugle call. (HT: Instapundit.)