AMERICA'S OLDEST VETERAN LAID TO REST, 2001-04-28 (photo)

Seventy-seven year old Disabled American Veteran Leroy Wells (C) salutes 112-year old Army veteran Willie Charles Smith during Smith's funeral at the St. Johns Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida April 28, 2001. Smith, who fought in the trenches of France in World War I, was the oldest living military veteran in America until his death according to the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs. "He spoke of being in jthe trenches with blood up to his ankles," said Curt Craig, treasurer of the Disabled American Veterans chapter in Tallahassee. Smith is survived by six children, 33 grandchildren, 116 great-grandchildren, and 41 great-great-grandchildren. According to his daughter, Minnie Toliver, who is 77, Smith occasionally mourned the passing of men he'd gone off to war with telling her "all of them are gone but me," Toliver said. MW