[WWI] One US Vet left

[mikemuth at ptd.net]

Pulled this off the internet today.
Mike Muth
1 Known WWI Veteran Left After Bay Area Man Dies
Tampa Tribune
, 2008-02-06
By Karen Branch-Brioso, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Feb. 6--TAMPA -- World War I veteran Harry Landis has died in Sun City Center
at the age of 108, leaving 107-year-old Frank Buckles of West Virginia as the
only known surviving U.S. World War I veteran.

Landis died Monday at Sun Terrace Health Care Center in Sun City Center, his
caregiver Donna Riley said. Until his final week, when he had trouble
swallowing and left his apartment for Sun Terrace, the famously healthy Landis
didn't need daily medication:

"He only took eyedrops and a vitamin," Riley said. "He would laugh and say he
always had a better immune system than just about all his family members. He
said it had to do with eating fresh vegetables, growing things himself."

A farm boy who grew up in Palmyra, Mo., Landis always downplayed his World War
I service. He never saw action. In fact, he never left his college town of
Fayette, Mo.

After the war started, the 18-year-old enlisted in the Student Army Training
Corp. His service: mopping up after recruits suffering from influenza in a
makeshift sick bay of a college dormitory.

He joined in October 1918. The armistice was signed Nov. 11, 1918. He was
discharged honorably the next month.

"I never actually left my college," Landis told the Tribune in an interview
last year. "They would send me with a mop and a bucket to clean the hospital
floors. …That was my experience in the military. Seriously, it wasn't much
more than that."

Buckles lives in Charles Town, W.Va., on his family cattle farm, and is in
good health.

"He's doing great," said his caretaker, Barbara Norman. "I know he went out
Saturday with some friends and had lunch because he turned 107 on Friday."

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