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Last man standing

Editor's note: NBC's Bob Faw introduces you to Frank Buckles tonight on the Memorial Day edition of NBC Nightly News [VIDEO LINK]. You can hear more from Buckles in his own words by clicking here to watch a video produced by NBC's Andy Gross and editor Ed Eaves.

When you are with 106-year-old Frank Buckles, you are in the presence of the 20th century. You are also sitting with the last remaining veteran of World War I who served overseas. It is this fact that afforded me the opportunity to spend a day with Buckles on his postcard perfect farm in West Virginia while preparing tonight's story with correspondent Bob Faw for this Memorial Day edition  of Nightly News. When asked if he ever thought that he'd be the last survivor among the 4 million men who fought in the Great War for the United States, he just chuckles and shakes his head. You get that a lot from Frank; bemused grace from a life that touched on many of the seminal moments of the last century. You see it all just sitting with him in his memorabilia-crammed study. Here are just some of his historical highlights: Watched Jesse Owens run and saw Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was a POW of the Japanese for 39 months in WWII in the notorious Los Banos internment camp; and was rescued in a daring raid by the 11th Airborne Division. "I didn't ask for all of it, it just happened that way," Frank says of his remarkable life.

Photo caption: Frank Buckles on his porch in West Virginia. The red ribbon he's wearing is the Legion of Honor, France's highest military award, given to him for his service in France during WWI. Photo by David DeJonge of DeJonge Studio.

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And then there were three

Editor's note: When Andy's not cutting spots for the broadcast, he's the Washington bureau's resident amateur historian and war buff. This month marks the 90th anniversary of U.S. involvement in World War I.

When Lloyd Brown, 105, and Charlotte Winters, 109, died a day apart in late March, it brought the number of surviving U.S. veterans of World War I to three. That's right, three. The war that launched the "American Century" is a sadly forgotten footnote to most  Americans and perhaps we need to pause and give this conflict and those who fought in it their due. When the guns fell silent 89 years ago this November, more than 4.5 million American men and women had proudly served their country. Winters, the last surviving female veteran of the conflict, served stateside in the Naval Reserve. Brown hunted German u-boats as a sailor aboard the USS New Hampshire. Our living World War I vets are Frank Buckles of West Virginia, Russell Coffey of Ohio; and Harry Landis of Florida.

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Caring for aging parents

Editor's note: Our "Trading Places" series continues tonight with Tim Russert's story of how he cares for his father in Buffalo, N.Y. If you missed Brian's report last night, click here to read or watch.

Life may offer you a guidebook, but the pages are blank -- you have to fill them out as you go. With that in mind, we are featuring stories this week about the challenges of caring for our aging parents and it's hitting closer to home than I ever imagined. I just returned to Washington, D.C., after a week in Redmond, Wash., a suburb of Seattle.  I'd gone out there to help my 81-year-old Dad through a tough surgery and I only had a few days to get him home from the hospital and make sure he was safe and comfortable before I had to take the cross-country trip back. While at the hospital, in the grocery checkout, or in line at the pharmacy, I saw others just like me —- adult children or other caretakers doing what they could to help out an aging parent. Assisting a frail parent walk, leaning in to hear a dry whisper of a voice, chuckling over some shared family memory -- these are scenes repeated hundreds if not thousands of times each day in this country.

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Navigating the memories of a veteran

When I was growing up back in the 1960s, it seemed like all of my friends' dads had participated to some degree in the big one -- World War II.  I pretty much took it for granted.  I knew my dad had served. I had seen the black-and-white photos he kept in his room and the big cardboard box in the closet that contained some medals, maps, photos, a Japanese yen with the names of cities handwritten on it, and books to help spot enemy planes based on their silhouettes.  But we never really talked much about what he had done.   

Well, it's taken me 30 years to start asking, and maybe it’s taken him that long to feel comfortable about it, but the stories are starting to emerge.  Stories of being scared, airsick, feeling the heat and smelling burning cities as the planes roared in at only 5,000 feet.

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You say Missour-ah, I say Missour-ee

As the election looms we've all heard about states deemed crucial by the pundits, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Montana. But right at the top of the list is Missouri, or is it Missourah? I'd like to wade into the the pronunciation debate of my old stomping grounds because it appears to be nearly universally accepted by many talking heads on television that the state name is pronounced "Missour-ah." I beg to disagree. I grew up in a small river town named Alton and I crossed the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers every school day for eight years to attend schools in St. Louis. And during all those years the predominant pronunciation that I heard for both the river and the state was Missour-ee. I knew that folks in downstate Missouri and more rural areas used Missour-ah, but they also tended to have the softer southern dialect that lended itself to that type of pronunciation.

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Did you know?

In all of the coverage of the Mideast conflict and the city of Tyre over the past few weeks, you may have noticed the odd-shaped peninsula that shows up in the satellite photos that we use. Jutting sharply into the Mediterranean Sea, the spit of land is one of the most notable features of the coastline. What's interesting to note is that it was man-made. In 333 B.C., Alexander the Great marched his army of Macedonians south and laid siege to the city of Tyre. The once crown jewel of the Phoenician Empire had faded a bit over the years, but it was still a major pawn in the conflict between the Persians and Greeks.

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Another tax cut II

A few weeks ago I wrote about the demise of the tax on long-distance telephone calls. Today, I can report that the Senate Finance Committee just passed legislation to kill the tax on local calls as well. It's now on to the full Senate for consideration.

I talked to Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who spearheaded the effort, and he explained that the tax on local calls is regressive and has long outlived its usefulness. The tax on long-distance calls is scheduled to disappear from your phone bills on July 31. Starting next year, the government will reimburse three years worth of taxes on long-distance calls, including any plans that combine local and long-distance calling. You will be able to file for a refund on your 2006 federal income tax returns. Tax experts figure the typical household pays $18.36 a year in federal excise taxes, or $55 over three years. The IRS has not decided the size of the standard refund for individuals, but taxpayers who use the phone a lot will be able to apply for a larger refund if they can document how much they paid in excise taxes. So I guess we can say that the Battle of San Juan Hill was not only won, but it has been paid for too!

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Another tax cut

What with all the "big" and "breaking" news happening today, here's one small item that likely won't get much notice. But it can be considered a victory for the American taxpayer. The Treasury Department is killing the "sin tax" that appears on our phone bills and was the the subject of a Fleecing of America with correspondent Fred Francis (produced by yours truly) back in 1998. The purpose of the tax -- to pay for the Spanish American War. That's right... the "Remember the Maine" and Teddy Roosevelt and the Roughriders war. But now the Treasury Department says it will no longer collect the telephone tax on long-distance calls and it's going to refund about $15 billion to consumers.

The tax dates back to 1898, when telephones were seen as a luxury and lawmakers needed a quick tax to help pay for the Spanish-American War. The war ended, we won, but the tax stuck around for another 108 years. According to current plans, individual taxpayers can claim three years worth of refunds on next year's tax return.

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In war on terror, beware the 'BATS'

We often cover a myriad of events that never make it onto the newscast you watch each evening. Often it's a matter of time constraints, or as in today's case, a no-cameras-allowed press briefing. That's a tough sell anywhere on television.

But in the aforementioned example, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) unveiled a fascinating Web-based search engine for tracking arson and explosives intelligence. In the works for two years and called BATS (Bomb Arson Tracking System), it enables the nation's bomb squads and arson investigators to upload their key information, digital photographs and electronic files as well as examine those from their counterparts around the country. According to the ATF, it has helped crack cases around the country. And for those playing along at home, no, you can't access it, it's for law enforcement only.

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Did you know?

In an interesting twist of history, the Iraqi province in which the U.S. military is launching "Operation Swarmer" is named Salah ad-din, after the most famous Islamic military hero of all, Saladin. A Kurd who was born in Tikrit in the 12th century, Saladin is credited with uniting the Arab world after years of setbacks at the hands of the crusaders. Saladin retook Jerusalem for the Muslims in 1187 after defeating the king of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin near the Lake of Galilee. When his soldiers entered the city of Jerusalem, they were forbidden from killing civilians, robbing people or damaging religious structures in the city. Such mercy was rare at the time, certainly unknown to the crusaders, and he has been lionized by European and Arab historians ever since.  Saladin went on to rule from Cairo and is credited with building that city's most modern hospital, complete with private rooms and staffed with trained doctors. Saladin died in 1193 and is buried in Damascus, Syria.

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