On the recordDecember 2, 2014
I thank the gentleman from New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, it was called the ``War to End All Wars.'' It began 100 years ago, and after 3 years, World War I was a bloody stalemate. Then the American doughboys entered the bloody trenches of Europe, and the tenacious teenagers went over there to a land they had never seen fighting for people they did not know. But soon after, the war turned in the favor of the Allies, and the war was over. Allied victory was declared in 1918. Millions and millions of people throughout the world had died. 116,000 Americans died. Many more thousands died when they came back to America from the Spanish flu that they got while they were overseas. The last surviving World War I veteran was Frank Buckles. This is a photograph of him shortly before his death. I got to know Frank Buckles before he died at the age of 110. Like I said, he was the last surviving World War I veteran from America. He lied to get into the United States Army. He was probably 15. He convinced some Army recruiter that he was 21, and they signed him up. He served in World War I. After World War I was over with, World War II started, and he found himself in the Philippines. He was captured by the Japanese and put in a prisoner-of-war camp until World War II was over. But he came to the United States Capitol and met with many Members of the House and Senate for the sole purpose of making sure that those doughboys he fought with and who died were remembered by the United States Congress.…
