You’ll love the wit and wisdom of the nation’s newest oldest military veteran

Janine Stange
Feb 5, 2020 7:03 PM PST
1 minute read
You’ll love the wit and wisdom of the nation’s newest oldest military veteran

(Photo: www.Facebook.com/MrOvertonDoc)

After losing Frank Levingston, who died at the age of 110 last week, the veteran community now has another supercentenarian: World War II vet Richard Overton now assumes the title of oldest living American military veteran, just in time for his own 110th birthday.

Watch video from his 110th birthday here.

Overton was born in Bastrop County on May 11th, 1906. He  lives in Austin, Texas. According to his wikipedia page, he enlisted in the Army at 36 years old on September 3, 1942. He was a corporal in an all-black 1887th Engineer Aviation Battalion in the South Pacific and made stops in Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima.

Overton retired from the Arm

y as Sergeant in 1945 and moved to East Austin, Texas. He worked at local furniture stores and then took a position with the Texas Department of the Treasury. He has lived in the same home - which he bought for $4,000 - for 71 years.  He was married twice, and did not have children. He outlived all of his 10 siblings - and wives.

A documentary, Mr. Overton, has been produced on his life and profiles his daily routine, thoughts on longevity, and military service. According to the film's Facebook page, it will be available at the Short Film Corner Cannes Court Metrage for the duration of the Cannes Film Festival, which starts today.

The candid combat vet has been interviewed numerous times. Here's what he had to say on a variety of subjects:

War:

"War's nothing to be into," said Overton in a 2013 interview with USA Today. "You don't want to go into the war if you don't have to. But I had to go. I enjoyed it after I'd went and came back, but I didn't enjoy it when I was over there. I had to do things I didn't want to do."

"They tried to kill me in the Army, but God wouldn't let 'em. I stayed for nearly five years and I didn't get a scratch on me."

Whiskey:

"You put a taste of whiskey in your coffee in the morning, and it's like medicine," he advised Cigar Aficianado in 2015. He later told local paper My Statesman that he also uses it to sleep: "at night when I go to bed, I put two tablespoons in my 7 Up. It makes you sleep soundly."

Guns:

"You don't ever leave a bullet under the trigger. Leave it empty. You got to clean your gun every day. You got to keep that barrel clean, because you got to use it every day."   (Watch his interview with Guns.com here)

Cigars:

He had his first cigar at 18, and has been a regular ever since.  Cigar Aficianado observed "he prefers them mild and on the smaller side—he doesn't enjoy the fat cigar trend, doesn't like a cigar that's too big to hold comfortably in your mouth."

"I don't inhale them," Overton said. "It's the good taste. Cigars are my friend," he added. "They keep me company."

Staying mobile:

"You've got to stir around a lot—your muscles get dry, your blood gets slow," he told Cigar Aficianado last year. "You need to get up and move around. If your muscles get sluggish, it slows your blood down."

Meeting President Obama in 2013:

"When I come back, everybody wants to know what he said. But I ain't said one word. I ain't no tattletale and I don't talk tales." he told My Statesman.

His 'fame':

"And everywhere I go now, somebody know me," he says. "Every time I go to a store, somebody say, 'I seen you on TV.' I say, 'No, you didn't.' 'Yes I did, too,' they say."

On aging:

"I feel good," Richard Overton told NBC News. "A little old, but I'm getting around like everybody else."

Now watch this:

 

 

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