Let's Carry On for Frank

Heaven hail you, Corporal Buckles,
World War I’s last U.S. soldier,
Bio of whom yields white knuckles,
Near-death times so tough to conjure:
Scarlet fever, German biplanes,
POW (World War II) strains.

Still, a century and a decade,
Frank survived to die a farmer.
Though the military forbade
Someone sixteen, he the charmer
Volunteered and, months of wrenches,
Drove the wounded from the trenches.

Office worker in Manila,
When the Japanese invaded.
Hope of rescue, scant scintilla
Had he till the camp was raided
Three years later by our airborne,
Helped by Filipinos war-torn.

Past a hundred, on his tractor
Tilling West Virginia’s soil,
Now in Arlington’s, he pushed for
Fixing D.C.’s memorial
To doughboys who on Frank relied.
One hundred sixteen thousand died.