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Author Topic: VA asking for assistance with WWI vets  (Read 5452 times)

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Offline Antonescu

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VA asking for assistance with WWI vets
« on: April 11, 2007, 09:38:36 PM »
Here is the article that came out. Please try to find if there are any WWI vets still alive and notify the VA!

VA seeking surviving WWI veterans
By Chris Vaughn
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)

FORT WORTH, Texas - All doughboys, Uncle Sam wants you!

With the number of known surviving veterans of World War I down to a
handful, the Veterans Administration is asking for the public's help
to identify others who might have escaped attention.

"We want to keep track of them," said Jessica Jacobsen, a spokeswoman
for the VA regional office in Arlington, Texas. "We want to be able
to honor them."

In an advisory issued last week, the VA said only four men living
today experienced all-but-forgotten battlefields like the Meuse-
Argonne, the Marne and Chateau-Thierry.

Of 4.7 million men and women who served in the military then, the
known survivors are John Babcock, 102, of Puget Sound, Wash.; Frank
Buckles, 106, of Charles Town, W.Va.; Russell Coffey, 108, of North
Baltimore, Ohio; and Harry Landis, 107, of Sun City Center, Fla.

Babcock is an American who served in the Canadian army. The others
served in the U.S. Army. The last known Navy veteran died in March.

It is entirely possible that there are other living veterans that the
VA does not know about. The VA found Babcock, Buckles, Coffey and
Landis from other sources because none of the men ever received VA
benefits.
"Our records reflect no World War I survivors," Jacobsen said. "We
found these men by other means. So there very well could be more."

To qualify, a person must have served on active duty between April 6,
1917 and Nov. 11, 1918. Information about surviving WWI veterans can
be e-mailed to ww1@va.gov; faxed to 202-273-6702 or mailed to the
Office of Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, 810 Vermont
Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20420.
"Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it" George Santayana (1863-1952)
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VA asking for assistance with WWI vets
« on: April 11, 2007, 09:38:36 PM »
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