One Hundred & Ten

I submitted this to one publication in Toronto. I don't know if I should attempt at any others. As I checked the box saying it was exclusive to the one paper. But rules are meant to be broken right?

Frank Buckles name likely does not ring a bell in the minds of Canadians, but it should.

In 2007, I read an OP-ED about Mr. Buckles in the New York Times by Richard Rubin. At the time, I was in my early twenties and in my second year of Journalism at Sheridan College. I thought of how amazing it would be to interview: the last North American survivor of the Great War who had gone over there.

Did I mention I was a little naïve as well?

Using my rookie journalism skills, I called his residence in late November of 2007 requesting an interview.

To my surprise his daughter Susannah left me a message about my request for an interview. I immediately called her back and she told me of a Canadian connection her father had and when to call back again for the interview.

What his Wikipedia page and subsequent published articles in other mainstream media sites, fail to mention is that Mr. Frank Buckles was actually a resident of Toronto, Ontario, Canada for two years. “Immediately after the war when I came back in 1920, I went to a business school for about five months. Then I took the train for Toronto. There I got a job with the White Star Line; the steamship company. I spent two years in Toronto… I was at the Royal Bank Building, a twenty story building the tallest building of the British Empire,” Frank Buckles said.

He had intended to stay in Canada, from what he told me. However, New York and the rest of world would be calling him.

During the Second World War the Japanese captured him in the Philippines, spent three years in an internment camp, and was among Canadians. The group of 21 he was with was eventually rescued on February 23rd 1945.

Even though he never served in the Canadian Military or stayed here longer than two years, he embodied values that Canadians can appreciate. Mr. Buckles was a humble and peaceful man, like many of his generation answered the call of duty to help make the world a better place.

When I asked him if he was fearful of being sent to the Western Front he told me: “I enlisted for the purpose of serving and didn’t see why I shouldn’t.”

As the years have passed since the Great War it is unfortunate that it is no longer seen in the relativism framework. Frank Buckles was the last link on what a generation of British, French, Canadian and American young men fought for: a better world and peace, “I didn’t talk much after the war. I realized the importance of it and I think we should appreciate World War One, and what it meant,” said Frank Buckles.