War on the Web The Armistice was signed the day after Dunton's 19th birthday. (By Craig Cola – washingtonpost.com) Links on World War I • The Great War (PBS Online) • War Times Journal Series • Aircraft of World War I • The Great War Society • The Western Front Association

In the ensuing years, he collected two degrees from Harvard University and became a teacher and writer. His first novel, Wild Asses, spun the coincidental tale of veterans who returned from the war to attend Harvard and their conflicts with the prep school boys who had stayed home.

Another book, A Maid and A Million Men, was a Mulan-like story about a young girl who poses as her twin brother and ships out as an American solider to fight in France. The U.S. Army reprinted the book for its soldiers in World War II.

Dunton served then, too. At 42, he was among the oldest draftees, and became a public relations officer in the U.S. occupation forces in Japan as the war there was ending. With him came his new wife, Dorothy, a Circleville girl whose family his father once treated.

He rose to major and worked as a public affairs officer in the Defense Department until 1961. He returned to France twice in the 1950s, but then only to Paris.

Fifty-four years after they married, the Duntons sat last week in the living room of the Falls Church home they bought for $1,000 down in 1950.

Its walls hold an autographed photo from Gen. George C. Marshall, one of his bosses; a plaque marking his 1961 retirement; others noting his service to veterans organizations and as a longtime patron of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Copies of his novels rest in a bookcase.

His biggest battle now is to reach 100. Dunton endured chest surgery less than a month ago and can’t shake his bronchitis. He uses an oxygen machine a few times a day. His walking stick is never out of reach and a black cap keeps the chill off his hairless dome.

A good day means getting up and completing one task in the morning. If his eyes feel up to it, he’ll take a stab at reading the newspaper or a magazine under a magnifying lamp. He spent the last two Memorial Days in hospitals. They stopped going to Veterans Day festivities about five years ago, but will make an exception on Wednesday.

"I’m just trying to stick around long enough to get there," Dunton cracked.

After the war, Dunton wrote several books with military themes. (By Craig Cola – washingtonpost.com)

He’s one of 27 veterans nationwide who will receive the Legion of Honor medal and one of two mobile enough to attend the ceremony at the French embassy. The other is Frank Buckles of West Virginia, two years Dunton’s junior. A handful of Americans are chosen for differenct versions of the honor each year.

Past recipients include President Ronald Reagan, Ret. U.S. Gen. Colin Powell, governors and artists. French officials are still sorting through nearly 300 applications from other U.S. veterans who might qualify for the award.

"Time is of the essence," said Jean Raphael-Peytregnet, an embassy spokesman. "We are working days and nights for that because we know that they are old."

One friend watching Dunton from afar is Ret. Maj. Fred J. Meyer. The two were stationed together in Yokohama, Japan, after World War II and have regularly traded letters in the years since. As often as not these days, their correspondence includes a list of who has died.

Meyer, 82, last saw Dunton in April 1997. They met in Arizona, with a third member of their company who has since passed. Dunton was armed with a fifth of whiskey, which he used to hoist eloquent toasts to their brothers, fallen and forgotten.

Meyer returned home to Coulee Dam, Wash., and bought his own whiskey bottle. It sits unsealed on a shelf, waiting for the day he and Dunton meet again, he said.

Or if it becomes clear they won’t meet again.

"If he should pass on before I do, I’m gonna open that bottle and have three or four hefty toasts," Meyer said. "What a great fella."

John P. Martin can be reached at martinj@washingtonpost.com or by phone at 703-469-3179.