Remember last week when the Frank Buckles, the only surviving veteran of WWI died? His death is not without controversy. From Foxnews.com:
CHARLES TOWN, West Virginia — The daughter of Frank Buckles, who was the last American veteran of World War I, is urging lawmakers to let him lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sunday.
Susannah Buckles Flanagan said her father, who served as a military ambulance driver, wanted to lie in the rotunda to honor the memory of all WWI veterans.
“He looked upon this as his final duty, which he took seriously,” she said.
“If the last American soldier surviving is not suitable to serve as a symbol around which we can rally to honor those who served their country in the Great War, then who can serve that purpose? There is no one left,” she said in a letter released Saturday.
It is rare for the body of anyone to lie in “state” or “honor” in the Capitol Rotunda. During a such a ceremony, the Capitol is opened so the public can file past a flag-draped coffin positioned in the middle of the Rotunda. The passersby then pay their respects.
A Rotunda ceremony is traditionally reserved for presidents and other government figures. The US has only honored a handful of unelected figures in the rotunda.
Buckles will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery and President Barack Obama has ordered that flags on U.S. government buildings fly at half-staff that day.
Perhaps Mr. Buckles should have worked on this venture during his lifetime. It is easier to say no to a dead man than one who is 110 years old. It would be a nice honor and many congressman are on his side. Some, however, are not.
Lawmakers are divided over final burial plans for Frank Buckles. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:
Leaders in Washington have been divided over how to best honor Buckles and the 4.7 million other Americans who served during World War I.
West Virginia lawmakers want to see him lie in the Rotunda and are upset with congressional leaders who have objected.
House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., are seeking Pentagon permission to conduct ceremonies in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery, where Buckles will be buried.
Weigh in. Should Frank Buckles lie in state at the Capitol or should he lie in state at Arlington National Cemetery?
I vote the Rotunda. Frank Buckles was the last man standing of all who went “Over There.” It is not a tribute to Frank as much as it is the final honor for a long line of heroes. We won’t have this chance ever again to salute them one last time. Along with Frank in spirit would be an old, old friend of mine who has long since passed on. His name was Ernie. By the time I met him, he was elderly and feeble and in a wheelchair. But on the wall of his apartment, placed there by his loving wife, was his doughboy helmet and his old kit bag. And Ernie smiled, smiled, smiled.
For those young ones who do not get that last line in #1, there was an old World War I song which went: “Put all your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile…”
I vote the Rotunda too because he represents the last veteran of that war.
Wolverine – +1 – AND, he should have a ceremony in the amphitheater at Arlington before burial.
I wish I knew who to call to ‘vote.’ Dear God, he was the LAST living veteran of WWI. Their war memorial is in shambles still. It is a national disgrace.
I vote for the Rotunda ceremony AND the Arlington amphitheater ceremony. One of my grandfathers was a WWI vet. He past away in the 70s, but honoring Frank Buckles as the last man standing from that war would be a tribute to my grandfather and all others who served.
and he almost did not end up at Arlington – he did not qualify for burial, after Ross Perot got involved with the Bush Administration, he was granted special permission for burial in 2008.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april082008/ww1_vet_4-8-08.php
Reprint from open thread:
I just called the following to request that Frank Buckles be allowed to lie in state at the US Capital. In doing so, we honor the 5 million WWI veterans.
Mark Warner 202/224-2023
Jim Webb 202/224-4024
Frank Wolf 202/225-5136
Gerry Connally 202/225-1492
Reminder, all the numbers are posted in the tab up top marked VA Politicos and links.
The call was short, sweet and to the point. I directed the call to speak with the aid each and every time.
@NTK, well put and I pretty much said that to the legislators I called. They acted sort of surprised to get the call so maybe more people need to call.
I have an Uncle Frank who got a good dose of mustard gas over there but not enough to kill him.
This is so right! I wish other issues could be so simple.
That should have been HAD an uncle Frank.
Your Uncle Frank was a lucky man, Moon. I just found in Mrs. W’s ancestry a young man of 22, a Flemish lad. His name was Alphonse. The German army had swept across Belgium, nearly devastating the Belgian army and scorching the land. On 19 October 1914, Alfonse stood with what was left of the Belgian army. He was on his home ground in West Flanders. He was a soldier 2nd Class in the 4th Company of the 8th Regiment of the Line. I can imagine those troops were awaiting a massive attack by the Germans. They were probably fingering their bayoneted rifles nervously — and praying. But the attack never came. Instead a strange cloud unexpectedly swept across their lines, and young Alfonse suffocated in the mustard gas. He now lies in a place some might recognize: Flanders fields.
For Alfonse, for Frank Buckles, for Moon’s Uncle Frank, for NTK’s grandfather, for my old friend Ernie, and for all those who were in the Great War and are now departed, I have taken the liberty of repeating the poem written in 1915 by Major John McCrae of the Canadian Army:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw the sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
To that I would add perhaps one of the greatest quotes to come out of the Great War, spoken by a member of General John Pershing’s staff as the first troops of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) debarked on French soil:
“Lafayette, we are here.”
@Wolverine
Thanks Wolverine. Very nice.