November 10, 2006
Friday AM

Scrawny but determined to fight in World War I, Howard Ramsey scarfed down banana after banana to bulk up enough to enlist. Today, he is still feisty at 108.

At 16, Frank Buckles lied about his age so he could go to war against the Germans in France. Now 105, he still runs his West Virginia cattle farm.

The son of former slaves, Moses Hardy and his segregated unit battled the enemy in horrific trench combat. Now 112 or 113, he says the only doctor he needs is Dr. Pepper.

These remarkable "Doughboys" - and about two handfuls more - are members of an increasingly fragile fraternity, relics of a world-changing conflagration little remembered today.

Once they stood 4.7 million strong: American farm boys, factory hands and tradesmen itchy for adventure, all called by their country to fight "the war to end all wars."

Now, when the 88th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I arrives Saturday, there won't be enough surviving U.S. veterans of that defining conflict to fill a platoon.

When 2006 began, an unofficial roster of known remaining American WWI vets listed only about 24 names. Eleven months later, those ranks have dwindled to 12, Scripps Howard News Service has confirmed. Perhaps another dozen, who joined the armed forces after Armistice Day and served in the immediate aftermath of the war, still live, as well.

With an average age of 108, it is unlikely these numbers will hold for long. All are pushing the envelope of human longevity, especially Emiliano Mercado del Toro, of Isabella, Puerto Rico, who at 115 is both the world's oldest living man and the longest-lived U.S. veteran in history.

"The torch is quickly passing," said retired Brig. Gen. Steve Berkheiser, executive director of the National World War One (cq) Museum in Kansas City, Mo.

So is an era that seems ancient by today's standards. Many of these vets were born under a U.S. flag with just 45 stars and have witnessed three centuries. They have seen 19 presidents lead the nation through seven wars. Their lives began before airplanes, radio, talking movies, and antibiotics. Animals were a more common mode of transportation than tin lizzies.

"They're the only generation that has gone from outhouses to outer space," said Muriel Sue Parkhurst Kerr, who heads what's left of the Veterans of World War I of the United States organization, which once boasted 800,000 members.

They also were part of a pivotal war, one that vaulted America onto the global stage for the first time, and set in eventual motion World War II, the Cold War and the Middle East turmoil that burns today. Those who fought in the trenches witnessed bloodshed never imagined before, in a conflict that saw the hell of chemical weapons and bayonet charges.

The mobilization of men was massive. From a U.S. population just one-third of the 300 million today, 2 million troops were sent to France. In all, 116,516 Americans died, in combat and from the Spanish flu, and 204,002 were wounded.

And when it was over, they came home, quietly and without celebrations or veterans' benefits. The only national memorial in the Washington area to the World War I soldiers and sailors is a small plaque at Arlington National Cemetery. Like the World War II "Greatest Generation," which they sired and which has come to overshadow them, they simply went on with their lives.

Antonio Pierro, for instance, saw terrible things when he fought in the brutal Argonne offensive in France. But he returned to a long but little noticed life in Swampscott, Mass., where he worked in a General Electric plant. His longevity - he is 110 - has brought him more attention than anything else in his nearly 90 years hence.

The same is true for Ernest Pusey, 111, of Bradenton, Fla. After serving on the battleship Wyoming, he worked at a General Motors plant for 32 years. He has outlived two wives and a son.

Partly as a result of their obscurity, no one knows for sure how many WWI vets remain alive. There was no national roll kept of their names, and a fire at a St. Louis official documents repository destroyed as much as 80 percent of the WWI-era military records.

It would not surprise the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is in the early stages of planning a final tribute to the last of the Doughboys, if a few more than the fast- dwindling dozen exist.

"We hope this attention to them will bring more to light," VA spokesman Chris Scheer said.

So does Will Everett, a documentarian in South Padre Island, Texas, and World War I buff. Determined to preserve the memories of as many remaining vets as possible, Everett crisscrossed the country this year to interview them. His two-hour radio presentation - narrated by news icon Walter Cronkite, himself an old warhorse of 90 - will air this weekend on National Public Radio stations.

"I feel I'm a keeper of the flame," Everett said.

He and author Richard Rubin, who has interviewed 36 WWI vets since 2003 for the forthcoming book "The Last of the Doughboys," marvel at the stoic resolve and uncommon grit of this generation, and lament that they are passing into history without the appreciation and recognition they long ago earned.

"We pride ourselves on being a country that cares deeply about its veterans, and yet, for decades now, we have overlooked, perhaps even forgotten, our World War I veterans," Rubin said, via e-mail. "We should ... remember them as a link to the very best of what America was, and a catalyst for the very best of what America is."

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