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And then there were three

By STEPHEN NOHLGREN
Published April 12, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Bob Croslin] Harry Landis, 107, is believed to be one of three surviving WWI veterans in the U.S.

SUN CITY CENTER - When he was a boy in Missouri, Harry Landis' whole family sometimes caught the flu at once. He would shake it off in three days while his parents and seven siblings convalesced for two weeks.

He's 107 but could pass for 80.

"I was born with a strong constitution," Landis says.

He also spurned cigarettes and stayed slim most of his life. Other than daily eyedrops, he takes no medication.

Whatever explains it, his longevity has earned Landis a footnote in American history: About 4.7-million Americans served in the military during the World War I era, but Landis may be one of only three still alive.

"People get all excited about it, but it doesn't amount to a damn," he says. "I've had a full life. It's just that time marches on."

Landis spends his days quietly at an assisted living facility with his 99-year-old wife, Eleanor.

His life grew more hectic this month because Friday was the 90th anniversary of America's entrance into that first global war.

Students wrote him letters, the government is trying to determine if there are any other remaining World War I vets and reporters want to record his thoughts.

Landis doesn't figure he was particularly patriotic. He was born on Dec. 12, 1899, and enlisted in October 1918, more than a year after America entered the war.

He had little choice, he says, because the government started drafting 18-year-olds.

The war ended a month later, and Landis never progressed past drilling and military instruction at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Mo.

His most arduous duty was hauling water and mopping a makeshift sick bay every day in the fourth-floor dormitory. Recruits reeling from pandemic influenza clogged the hospitals and spilled over to the college. When all but one of the nurses quit, Landis and other healthy recruits helped tend to their brethren.

Such stateside duty was common, says Eli Paul, director of the National World War I Museum in Kansas City. Only about half of American recruits ever shipped overseas.

"Prior to the war we had a miserably small army that was primarily known for chasing Pancho Villa all over Mexico," Paul says.

Mobilization took a year, and the war ended about six months after the first American company landed in France.

But fallout resonates today, Paul says.

"World War I showed that we were capable of turning this country into an industrial powerhouse and providing millions of men in uniform."

The center of the world's financial system shifted from London and Paris to New York. European powers carving up the old Ottoman Empire created arbitrary, unstable national boundaries in the Mideast. And postwar reparations demands in Germany created an incubator for Adolf Hitler and World War II.

"Some people believe the war to end all wars was really the peace to end all peace," Paul says.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs wants to honor the surviving veterans of the World War I era, but no one keeps a comprehensive list.

On April 2, the VA listed three known veterans: Landis; Frank Buckles, 106, of Charles Town, W.Va.; and Russell Coffey, 108, of North Baltimore, Ohio.

The VA may have tracked down one other vet in the last few days, spokesman Phil Budahn says, "but we haven't yet verified that information."

Two World War I vets died in March.

Coffey, the oldest known survivor, enlisted weeks before the war ended and never got out of training. A retired college teacher from Bowling Green State University, he gave up driving at 103. He now lives in a nursing home, where aides sometimes hold his hand so he can sign his name for autographs.

Buckles lied about his age and enlisted at 16. He made it to France but never saw action.

He was working in the Philippines in 1942 when the Japanese invaded and put him a POW camp for three years, says his daughter, Susannah Flanagan. He contracted beriberi and dysentery and left the camp weighing 100 pounds.

Though Buckles is rehabbing from a minor fall, his health remains good, Flanagan says. In one concession to age, he gave up mowing his cattle ranch three years ago.

Landis is a genetic anomaly. His father died at 79 and his mother at 74. Yet his life spans three centuries.

His hearing and eyesight have waned, he says, but he still feels so good "they'll have to shoot me to get rid of me."

After the war, he managed variety stores in New York and Ohio. He remembers "the depression" well.

There was a terrible drought and his family struggled to hold on to their Missouri farm. Yep, that depression of 1913-1914 was a bad one.

He lived through the invention of airplanes, television, interstate highways and cell phones. But the biggest change?

"Money has decreased in value," he says. "There is so much of it."

After Pearl Harbor, he was rejected for military service at age 42. "They wanted the boys," he says. "They didn't want the old men."

He retired in 1959. Since then, America has fought three wars.

Information from the Columbus Ohio Dispatch was used in this report.

Fast Facts:

World War I (1917-1918)

U.S. service members: 4.7-million

Died in battle: 53,402

Still alive: 3 known

Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Know any vets?

The U.S. government wants to identify people who served in the armed forces during World War I and are still alive. If you have information, contact ww1@va.gov or by fax to (202) 273-6702, or by mail to Office of Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs (80), 810 Vermont Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20420.

[Last modified April 12, 2007, 01:30:15]