On the recordFebruary 3, 2010
They called it the ``war to end all wars''; 4.7 million Americans went over there to Europe in the great World War I, and 116,000 of them never came home. When they arrived back in the United States in 1918, thousands of them died from the flu that they had contracted in France. They called them ``doughboys'' because of the look of their uniform. One such person was an individual by the name of Frank Buckles. Frank Buckles lied to get into the United States Army. He was 16. And he went from recruiter to recruiter to recruiter and finally convinced somebody he was 21. He got into the United States Army and went over there with the doughboys to end the war to end all wars. He drove an ambulance and rescued other Americans who were fighting that great war. He said, We were typical cocky Americans. No one wanted us around until the French and the British needed some help winning that war. And just 19 months after the first Yanks arrived, the guns fell silent. Yes, that war ended on November 11, 1918. But that wasn't all for Frank Buckles. After he was discharged from the United States Army in 1918, he found himself in a place called Manila in the Philippines on December 8, 1941, when the Japanese attacked--the day after Pearl Harbor--and Frank Buckles was captured by the Japanese. For the next 39 months he was held as a prisoner of war in a Japanese concentration camp. He was finally freed on February 23, 1945, the day the Japanese had ordered his execution.
