Frank Buckles and World War I

Frank Buckles, the last surviving U.S. veteran of World War I, passed away this past February. He was 110. [Source]

Mr. Buckles led a remarkable life. After serving in Britain and France as an ambulance driver, he repatriated German POWs. During World War II, while working as a civilian on a merchant ship, he was captured in the Philippines by the Japanese. After reading his brief biography, I began to wonder why WWI gets so little attention when compared with WWII.

First, there's the sheer numbers of the "Greatest Generation" who are still alive today. They make for a strong constituency. Second, there was no live coverage of the First World War. The video of the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima is much more powerful than a still frame of our dead in a ravished forest.

Next, the Second World War was much more dynamic -- multiple theaters, amphibious assaults, paratroopers, and tanks that actually worked make for a much better story. Plus, it was longer. The five months or so of intense fighting today seems relatively brief; we probably spent more time occupying the Rhineland afterward than we did in the field.

Finally, there wasn't really any threat to the U.S., so the public was less interested. The Kaiser was vilified in propaganda, but the real threat he posed didn't come even close to Hitler. And by 1918, Germany's armies were pretty well exhausted, too -- there wasn't as much glory to be won by beating an already worn out enemy.

But the real reason I think "The War to End all Wars" gets so little attention is that no one really understood the Doughboys in the first place. Unlike their European allies, American troops weren't able to visit home during their breaks from the front. Americans got news of victories, but not of their experience.

When the war was over, people didn't want to hear about it. Their own experiences were so far removed from the horrors of gas and artillery barrages that it was too terrible to listen. So the soldiers kept it to themselves. There are very few American soldiers' memoirs compared to Europe and Australia. It's sad.

I remember having heard a while back about the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne, the deadliest battle the U.S. ever fought. Along with the offensives along the British and French sectors, it ended the war after six weeks and 26,000 American deaths -- about three times the number of Marines killed on Iwo Jima.

It seemed like a good start for an understanding of the war, so I bought Ernest Lengel's book To Conquer Hell as a way to honor Mr. Buckles. Though this was a while back, I just recently finished it, and wrote a review.

World War I was a horrible experience for millions of men, and their pain was compounded by public neglect and mistrust afterward (see my review of the Bonus Army). Though now there's no one left to appreciate the gesture, I hope that by learning from the Doughboys' sacrifices we can one day realize their dream of an "End [to] all Wars."