Grand Rapids photographer had special link to last World War I vet Frank Buckles

MLive.com: Grand Rapids photographer had special link to last World War I vet Frank Buckles
GRAND RAPIDS — It was an unlikely friendship: Two men separated by 68 years and almost 500 miles. One was a photographer, the other, the last living veteran of World War I.

But four years ago, a photograph began a friendship Dave DeJonge could never have predicted; one that would come to influence every aspect of the Grand Rapids-based photographer’s life.

In the last four years, DeJonge had met with Frank Buckles about 20 times. The two traveled across the country — hitting the nation’s capital, Kansas and Missouri — promoting a memorial for World War I veterans. DeJonge, 42, calls Buckles’ 55-year-old daughter his older sister; she calls him her little brother.

In the aftermath of Buckles’ death on Sunday at 110, DeJonge — who has been the Buckles’ family spokesman since 2007 — said he’s been too swamped with phone calls and e-mails from media outlets ranging from ABC to CNN and the BBC to truly mourn his friend’s passing.

Buckles died of natural causes at his home in West Virginia.

“I’ve just been focusing a lot on the position as a spokesman side of things with an occasional flourish of, ‘Hey, I just lost a friend,’” DeJonge said Monday in his photography studio in Grand Rapids.

He held up the photographs he took of Buckles in 2007 and recalled the friendship that sprung from them.

DeJonge met with Buckles for the first time while working on his project photographing the last living World War I veterans. He spent 20 minutes talking to the veteran after photographing him and was fascinated by his life experiences.

“You know, every time he opens his mouth, it’s another nugget of global history that he’s experienced,” DeJonge said.

Buckles rode a horse to school. He used wireless radios to talk to his friends because phones weren’t around yet. He was an ambulance driver in World War I who saw the ravages of the Spanish flu, sailed across the world as a merchant shipper and met Adolph Hitler in a hotel lobby.

He attended the 1938 Olympics in Germany and watched as American sprinter and long-jumper Jesse Owens won four gold metals. During World War II, Buckles was held as a prisoner of war.

DeJonge was intrigued — and wanted to hear more.


Courtesy ArtWWI veteran Frank Buckles as photographed by Grand Rapids photographer David DeJonge.
“It doesn’t stop there. It just keeps going and going,” he said of Buckles’ experiences.
The two hit it off and kept in touch after the photography session. Buckles’ stories should be remembered, DeJonge thought. He began working on a documentary about him — one that is still in progress.

When DeJonge was invited to the White House and Pentagon to unveil his photographs of the last living veterans, Buckles came along.

“At the end of that ceremony, I looked to Frank and I said, ‘We need to go see the only symbol to your generation in D.C.’ and he said, ‘OK, let’s do it,’” DeJonge said.

Two sidewalks led to the District of Columbia War Memorial, which was dedicated to D.C. residents who gave their lives in WWI. The sidewalk was nearly impassable, the memorial crumbling.

It was after Buckles’ wheelchair had to be woven around the cracks to get to the memorial’s base that DeJonge and Buckles began advocating for its restoration and renaming as the D.C. and National World War I Memorial.

The veterans of World War I are forgotten, DeJonge said. They suffered horrible deaths, fought terrible battles
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“War is hell, as they say, but this is a deeper level of hell than anyone has ever experienced,” he said.

The men and women who fought through that need to be memorialized with something of national significance, DeJonge said.

That goal brought the two across the country as they began pushing for the measures, and their friendship grew. They formed the World War I Memorial Foundation to advocate and raise money.

Through the challenges and rejections and doubts on the part of some, DeJonge continued standing by Buckles’ side. Although some questioned why he spent so much time on the goal, he pushed on.

A piece of the sidewalk from the D.C. memorial sits on DeJonge’s desk as a form of inspiration.

“It’s about giving someone your word and following through, you know, that you’ve got his back. We’ll restore the memorial, we won’t give up,” DeJonge said.

DeJonge says although Buckles has passed away, he still won’t give up the fight. One of the things he says he learned from the veteran was to keep pressing on, no matter the odds.

“He was always an optimist, always looking forward to the future,” he said of Buckles. “Just because he’s on the other side right now, I look at it as, he’s free to help us fight.”