33 Facts About Frank Buckles

Frank Buckles testified before Congress in support of this cause, and met with President George W Bush at the White House.

Frank Buckles was awarded the World War I Victory Medal at the conclusion of that conflict, and the Army of Occupation of Germany Medal retroactively following the medal's creation in 1941, as well as the French Legion of Honor in 1999.

Frank Buckles's funeral was on March 15,2011, at Arlington National Cemetery, with President Barack Obama paying his respects prior to the ceremony with full military honors.

Frank Buckles had two older brothers, Ashman and Roy, and two older sisters, Grace and Gladys.

Frank Buckles's ancestry included soldiers of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

Frank Buckles is a distant relative of a Navy Lieutenant named Robert Buckles, who in 2011 was stationed at the Naval Submarine Learning Center, Naval Submarine Base New London.

Frank Buckles survived, but Ashman died from the disease aged four.

Between 1911 and 1916, Frank Buckles attended school in Walker, Missouri.

Frank Buckles was an amateur wireless operator, and an avid reader of newspapers.

Five months after the American entry into World War I, Frank Buckles sought to enlist in the armed forces.

Frank Buckles was turned down by the Marine Corps for being too small, and by the Navy, which claimed that he had flat feet.

Frank Buckles fared better with the Army, which accepted that he was an adult even though he looked no older than his 16 years.

Frank Buckles enlisted on August 14,1917, and went through basic training at Fort Riley in Kansas.

Frank Buckles saw the war's impact on malnourished children in France, and more than 80 years later he could remember helping to feed them.

Frank Buckles then attended business school in Oklahoma City, and found work at a shipping company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Frank Buckles witnessed antisemitism and its effects firsthand while ashore in Germany, and he warned acquaintances in Germany that their country would be brought down by Adolf Hitler, whom he encountered at a German hotel.

Frank Buckles was captured in January 1942 by Japanese forces, and spent the next three years and two months as a civilian internee in the Santo Tomas and Los Banos prison camps.

Ancestors named Frank Buckles had settled near Gap View Farm centuries earlier.

Audrey Frank Buckles died in 1999, and their daughter moved back to the farm to care for him.

Frank Buckles stated in an interview with The Washington Post on Veterans' Day 2007 that he believed the United States should not go to war "unless it's an emergency".

Frank Buckles joined actor Gary Sinise in 2007 to lead a Memorial Day parade, and that evening his life was featured on NBC Nightly News.

Frank Buckles was the Honorary Chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation, which seeks refurbishment of the District of Columbia War Memorial and its establishment as the National World War I Memorial on the National Mall.

Frank Buckles was named ABC's World News Tonight's "Person of the Week" on March 22,2009, in recognition of his efforts to set up the memorial.

Those efforts continued, as Frank Buckles appeared before Congress on December 3,2009, advocating on behalf of such legislation.

Frank Buckles did so as the oldest person who ever testified before Congress.

Frank Buckles was a Life Member of the National Rifle Association of America.

In late 2010, Frank Buckles was still giving media interviews and became a supercentenarian upon his 110th birthday, on February 1,2011.

On February 27,2011, Frank Buckles died of natural causes at his home aged 110 years and 26 days.

Frank Buckles was the second-oldest living man in the United States at the time of his death.

Frank Buckles did not meet the criteria for burial at Arlington National Cemetery as he had never been in combat, but friends and family secured special permission from the federal government in 2008.

Frank Buckles did not qualify for the Prisoner of War Medal, because he was a civilian at the time of his imprisonment by the Japanese.

Frank Buckles conducted three oral history interviews, given when he was 100,103, and 107 years old.

Frank Buckles received the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry's Knight Commander of the Court of Honour in September 2008.