He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1917 aged 16 and served with a detachment from Fort Riley, driving ambulances and motorcycles near the front lines in Europe.

During World War II, then aged 40, he was captured by Japanese forces while working in the shipping business, and spent three years in the Philippines as a civilian prisoner.

After the war, Buckles married in San Francisco and moved to Gap View Farm near Charles Town, West Virginia.

His 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.

[12] Later that year, he embarked for Europe aboard the RMS Carpathia, famous for rescuing the survivors of Titanic in 1912, which was being used as a troop ship.

[12] During the war, Buckles drove ambulances and motorcycles for the Army's 1st Fort Riley Casual Detachment, first in England and then France.

One German prisoner gave him a belt buckle inscribed "Gott mit uns" (English: God with us), which he kept for the rest of his life.

[22] Buckles then attended business school in Oklahoma City,[13] and found work at a shipping company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

[24][25] In the 1930s, German and British passengers expressed fears about the Nazis, and military officers told him that Germany was equipping for war.

[24][26][27] Employed at sea during the Great Depression, he forwarded an $800 Army bonus to his father who was struggling as a farmer in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl (Buckles provided these details many decades later).

[31][32] He 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 Baños prison camps.

[35] With a weight below 100 pounds (45 kg), Buckles developed beriberi, and led fellow captives in calisthenics to counter the effects of imprisonment.

[26][33] Their captors showed little mercy, but Buckles was allowed to grow a small garden, which he often used to help feed children who were imprisoned there.

[38] By then, the world traveller had settled down to a life of farm activities, social events, and serving as an officer (eventually president) of the county historical society.

[10] After the start of the 21st century, Buckles continued living near Charles Town, West Virginia, and was still driving a tractor on his farm at age 103.

"[40] When asked the secret of long life, Buckles replied that being hopeful and not hurrying were key traits, adding: "When you start to die ...

[38] Buckles joined actor Gary Sinise in 2007 to lead a Memorial Day parade,[42] and that evening his life was featured on NBC Nightly News.

He 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.

[21][53]Passage of the legislation remained in doubt, because opponents sought relocation of the proposed monument, or alternatively some benefit for the District of Columbia.

[64] On February 1, 2010—Buckles' 109th birthday—his official biographer, David DeJonge, announced a forthcoming documentary about him, titled Pershing's Last Patriot, described as a cumulative work of interviews and vignettes.

[71] 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.

[72] That was accomplished with the help of Ross Perot, who had met him at a history seminar in 2001, and who intervened in 2008 with the White House regarding a final resting place.

[91] Concurrent resolutions were proposed in both the Senate and the House of Representatives for Buckles to lie in honor in the United States Capitol rotunda.

[94] Various people had supported a rotunda ceremony, including Buckles' daughter,[95] a great-grandson of Sir Winston Churchill,[96] and former Republican Party presidential nominee Bob Dole.

[11][98] His home church in Charles Town held a memorial service, attended by the Episcopal bishop of West Virginia, members of Buckles' family and others.

[37] On March 12, 2011, a ceremony was held at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri, to honor Buckles and the "passing of the Great War generation".

[102] Buckles' flag-draped coffin was borne to the burial plot on a horse-drawn caisson, and the folded flag was handed to his daughter by United States Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter W.

A reverent crowd of the powerful and the ordinary—President Obama and Vice President Biden, laborers and store clerks, heads bowed—came to salute Buckles's deceased generation, the vanished millions of soldiers and sailors he came to symbolize in the end.