Back From Battle, a Generation Kept Fighting

ON VETERANS DAY: Marine Darrell "Papa Bear" Pinson talks to fellow members of the U.S. Military Veterans Motorcycle Club at Arlington National Cemetery. Story, C1. (By Linda Davidson -- The Washington Post)

They weren't easy to find, given the paucity of records from the era. Scheer sent inquiries to hospitals and veterans offices all over the country, and compared notes with researchers, including Will Everett, a radio producer.

As far as they know, the list is 13 names. The eldest, Emiliano Mercado del Toro, is 115. Everett interviewed most of them, plus two others, now deceased, for a public radio documentary. Some of the vets haven't been able to converse in years.

Five of the 13 served in France, two in combat, but not Buckles, who was a driver in a rear area. Some of those Everett interviewed were animated, others weary. Their old recollections, abbreviated now, often come slowly. They labor to share anecdotes, the stories vivid in moments, then vague, as their memories wane.

Antonio Pierro, 110, survived the AEF's six-week Meuse-Argonne offensive, although more than 26,000 Americans died around him.

"I wasn't afraid to get killed," he told Everett. "A lot of the fellows, they lost an arm, a leg. They went blind. . . . Ahh, I want to forget all those bad days. You think the next minute your life is over. Every day there was guys that would get killed. Thank God I come out alive. Many of my buddies, they kicked the bucket."

The offensive was still underway when the Nov. 11 cease-fire order came. "I couldn't believe it," said Pierro, an artilleryman. "The war was over. Oh, boy. . . . What a day! The sergeant come out then and told the story, that peace was declared, and let's be happy we're still alive. It was just like a new day. Just like the sun had come out of the clouds."

The U.S. toll: 53,402 killed in action, 63,114 dead of other causes, mostly illnesses.

Caught in a post-war recession in 1919, many vets languished without jobs. The government gave disabled veterans up to $100 a month and offered them vocational training, years before the Veterans Administration was formed. Healthy vets got virtually nothing.

They argued to Congress that they were owed compensation for the higher civilian wages they missed while in the service. In 1924, lawmakers went along with the idea, sort of.

The men got certificates redeemable in 1945 for cash. "A bonus," it was called. The payments, typically about $1,000, would be based on military service time.

The vets were satisfied. The economy had improved by 1924, and most had found work. They started families and rode the 1920s boom -- until the Depression hit. Suddenly, like much of America, a lot of the veterans were wiped out.

"They were ruined," said Paul Dickson, co-author of "The Bonus Army." The book, written with Thomas B. Allen, recounts the turmoil that followed. "For a lot of them," Dickson said, the bonus certificate was "about the only thing they owned."