To The Lat Poem by John F. McCullagh

Of all who ever were or been.
Of all who breathed in hope of sin.
Frank Buckles was the last of all
the Doughboys, and the last to fall.

He enlisted while still underage
Was “over there” by seventeen.
Then was prisoner of the Japanese
During World War Two in the Philippines.
A decade and a century
A long and eventful life he led.

After the battle had been won
He walked among the newly dead
He took from one an unused week,
from another, an unused day in spring.
From his colonel, a month he’d never see
Thus Frank amassed his century.

At the end he was a living ghost
His wrinkled skin thin, parchment- like
If those ignorant armies were like a blizzard
He was the last soiled speck of white.