WAGNER-ALBERT

DEATH  OF  LAST  MARINE  CORPS

VETERAN  OF  WORLD  WAR  ONE

Albert Frederick “Jud” Wagner was born on September 5, 1899, in North Lincoln County, Kansas.  In 1905 the family moved to Harlin, Kansas, after the death of their father.  In 1918, Albert obtained permission of his family and joined the Marine Corps.  Upon completion of recruit training he was sent to Europe shortly before the Armistice ended World War One.  He served in France and Germany with the Army of Occupation until he was discharged from the Marines in 1919.  Upon his discharge, he returned to Kansas where he married, became a farmer in Smith County and raised livestock from 1930 until 1957.

After leaving his farm in 1957, Wagner moved his family to Smith Center, Kansas, where he lived for the remainder of his life.  In October 2002, he received the French Legion of Honor Medal in recognition of his World War One service.  In October 2006, a 30-mile section of U.S. Highway 36 through Smith County was designated as World War One Veterans Highway in Wagner’s honor.  On Veterans Day in 2006, at a ceremony held at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kansas, he was honored as the only known World War One veteran living in Kansas and the oldest former Marine in the nation.  On January 20, 2007, Albert Fredrick “Jud” Wagner, at the age of 107, died while living at Smith County Long Term Care Residence where the supervisor said her memory of Jud Wagner had nothing to do with him being a Marine.  “He gave the best hugs,” she said.  He was buried with full military honors provided by a Marine Corps color guard at Fairview Cemetery in Smith Center.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)