They say age is just a number. There are many cases in recorded history where boys who were too young for military service lied about their age, claiming to be older so they could enlist and fight for a cause they believed in. What’s far less common is for men of a certain age to lie about that age — claiming to be younger.
If you could ask Canadian-born John William Boucher, he would probably tell you that age really is just a number and that he has the medals from two American wars to prove it. He was born in Ontario when Canada was still a British colony. As a young man, he would head south to fight in the American Civil War, and as an old man, he would serve on the battlefields of World War I, a difference of some 52 years.
J.W. Boucher was born in December 1844 and was sent to a boarding school as a teenager, sometime around the death of his father. He spent his youth there and at the age of 19, he headed south, where the U.S. Civil War had been raging for two years. The Canadian wanted to fight for freedom in the United States.
At the time, the Union Army wasn’t very particular about who they were enlisting to wear the Union blue. Enlistment exams consisted of ensuring the recruit had all of their limbs, they were old enough and that they were males (and until 1863, they also had to be white). It didn’t matter that he was Canadian, as Canadian citizens joined the Northern armies in the tens of thousands. Boucher actually failed to join twice because he appeared too young, but he was finally recruited in Detroit and was sent to the 24th Michigan Infantry Regiment, where he served until the end of the war.
Boucher went home to Canada after the war, and led a fairly normal life for a Canadian at the time. He worked on railroads, in factories and as a security guard for a foundry in Ontario. He also started a family and became a fishing guide. By the time World War I broke out in Europe, Canada had come to govern itself, though Britain still controlled its international affairs. So when the British Empire declared war on the Central Powers, Canada came along for the ride. J.W. Boucher was a widower whose children had grown up.
As more than 620,000 Canadians put on uniforms to fight in the Great War, Boucher watched as his tiny fishing village turned into an armed encampment. As many veterans can probably sympathize, it made him yearn for his old military days.
“I saw youngsters… whom I had later taken out on camping and fishing trips suddenly grow to sturdy manhood. The uniform had transformed them.” He told the Syracuse Post-Standard in 1918. “Then… came the inspiration. My place was among them.”
The old man went to the nearest recruiting station to offer his services, but was turned away. At the time, the oldest an enlistee could be was 45 years old. Boucher was 69. He tried again two years later when he heard that a particular unit needed a cook, so he tried his luck at age 71 and was again denied. He even appealed to a senator for help in returning to service but that didn’t change anyone’s mind, either. Finally, in January 1917, the 257th Canadian Railway Battalion raised its age limit to 48, and Boucher confidently walked into the medical examination claiming to be a stout 48 years old. He was accepted as a private and trained to be a combat engineer, also known as a sapper.
Boucher was sent to France, where his years of working on Canada’s railroads came in handy. He built, maintained and repaired the trench railways that moved men, material, food and ammunition between frontline positions. Boucher, who was clearly older than everyone, hid his real age from most, but was given the nickname “Dad.” They built the rails from France to Belgium, all under fire from the front and from aircraft above. The man they called Dad was only found out because he was sent to an infirmary as he suffered from arthritis.
At age 73 he was dismissed from active service and sent to London as he awaited transport back to Canada. While there, Boucher received a gracious invitation from Buckingham Palace. On December 21, 1917, England’s King George V received the 73 year old in his private study, where the two had an informal discussion about his life, the war and the U.S. commitment to it. Not long after that meeting, Boucher was on his way back home.
Boucher became a notable man as word of his elderly daring spread across the United States and Canada. He moved to Syracuse in 1919, where he became a U.S. citizen before moving to Detroit and then Miami. He died in February 1939 at the age of 94.