Students from Kingwood, Texas raised more than $13,000 for WWI memorial.

By Robert Snyder / Special to The Journal (reprinted with permission)

Two months ago, Katie Morrison had no idea there were any American veterans of World War I remaining.  On Saturday, the 14-year-old Creekwood Middle School student got to meet one - the only one - when she and a delegation of students and teachers from Kingwood, Texas, presented this last living doughboy, 108-year-old Frank W. Buckles, with a check for $13,553.83 that students at her school district raised to help restore the long-neglected D.C. War Memorial, which was built in 1931 and which honors just the District's veterans of World War I.

Buckles, who was greeted at his home in Charles Town, received the funds on behalf of the World War I Memorial Foundation, which was established to help restore the dilapidated bandstand at the National Mall and to have it rededicated as a national memorial to the Great War.

Part of a service learning project at her school that began in January, Morrison's visit to the region with fellow students Seth Whitt, 13, and Hannah Plagens, 14, and their teachers, included a daylong cleanup on Friday of the crumbling war memorial, which was listed in 2006 by the D.C. Preservation League as one of the Most Endangered Places.

"It really is a forgotten war," she said. "It's just like the memorial itself; it's there, but it's forgotten about. It's a disgrace that these people aren't honored and aren't a part of history as they should be."

The honorary chairman of the memorial foundation and arguably one of the most active of U.S. veterans, Buckles served two years overseas as an ambulance driver and escort in England and France after fibbing to Army recruiters about his age. He was 16. He was born in 1901 in Harrison County, Mo., just a few miles away - as the crow flies, Buckles maintains- from the man who would lead the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, Gen. John Pershing.

Sitting in a chair on his front porch while students and teachers gathered around him and at his feet, Buckles said he was touched by their interest in World War I and its veterans.

"We've fallen in love with you," said Creekwood science teacher Jan York, who hit on the idea for the project after seeing a news broadcast about the unveiling of a portrait exhibit of World War I veterans at the Pentagon last year and of the effort by that exhibit's creator, Michigan photographer David DeJonge, to launch interest in the memorial's restoration. DeJonge's exhibit began its national tour in February at Creekwood.

"We're going to talk about it and we're going to get a memorial for all veterans," York told Buckles. "We believe the memorial needs to be built."

A bill to authorize the rededication of the D.C. War Memorial as a national memorial was introduced in the House of Representatives on Jan. 13 by U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, whose district includes Kingwood.

Plagens said she has taken a special interest in meeting Buckles because two of her great-great uncles served in World War I.

"I felt like I had a personal stake in meeting him," she said. "It made a big impact in me that I had family who fought and died in World War I."

Plagens' mother, Elizabeth Plagens, who accompanied her daughter on the trip, said the need for a World War I memorial was brought home to her the more she began talking to people about the project.

"There were so many people I met in Texas who had been to D.C. and everyone had the same reaction: the World War I Memorial; where is that? Nobody could place it. The fact that 4 million people served and there's nothing to honor them makes for the sense of urgency," Plagens said.

Whitt, who was selected to hand the group's check to Buckles, said he was awed by the experience of meeting the war veteran. "I saw a photograph just two weeks ago of him sitting in his chair, and now I'm here, and here's that chair," Whitt said. "It's just an awesome experience to meet him."

Hannah Plagens said if the success of the school's fundraising effort has taught her anything, it was about what young people could accomplish if they really tried.

"I never thought my opinion would matter," she said. "Now, with this experience, I am able to see that a young person can change the world as much as any senator or congressman."

Photo:  Texas middle school students Seth Whitt, left, Katie Morrison and Hannah Plagens show ‘Flat Stanley’ paper dolls to Frank Woodruff Buckles, 108, on Saturday at his home near Charles Town. Buckles is the last surviving American WWI veteran, and students from Creekwood Middle School in Kingwood, Texas, have studied his story and are joining his effort to restore the WWI Monument in Washington, D.C. (Journal photo by Beth Henry)