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Richard Overton, US Oldest Veteran And Oldest Man, Dies Aged 112 - Health - Nairaland

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Richard Overton, US Oldest Veteran And Oldest Man, Dies Aged 112 by Davidstar5(m): 6:35pm On Dec 28, 2018
Richard Overton (C) is acknowledged by US President Barack Obama (not pictured) during a ceremony to honour veterans at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on 11 November 2013Image copyrightEPA
The United States' oldest known WW2 military veteran, who was also thought to be the country's oldest man, has died in Texas at the age of 112.
Richard Overton served in an all-black army unit for three years and was involved in combat operations and beach landings in the Pacific during the war.
He was honoured on Veterans Day in 2013 by President Barack Obama.
He credited God for his long life - though he also said whisky and cigars had played their part.
"I been smoking cigars from when I was 18 years old, I'm still a smoking 'em. Twelve a day," he is quoted as saying by local TV.
Skip Twitter post by @TexasVeterans
We are saddened that Mr. Richard Overton, the nation's oldest man, 3rd oldest living man in the world, and our Nation's oldest living veteran born in 1906, has died at age 112. "You don't know when you get here, you don't know when you go, it's in God's hands" - #RichardOverton pic.twitter.com/bZE48egckZ

— Texas Veterans Commission (@TexasVeterans) December 28, 2018
Report
End of Twitter post by @TexasVeterans
He was in his 30s when he volunteered for the army, served in the all-black 1887th Engineer Aviation Battalion, and was at Pearl Harbor not long after the Japanese attack in 1941.
"He was there at Pearl Harbor, when the battleships were still smouldering," Mr Obama said of Overton in 2013. "He was there at Okinawa. He was there at Iwo Jima, where he said, 'I only got out of there by the grace of God.'"
"We got in the foxholes, and bullets were coming over our heads," Mr Overton said in one interview of one landing, reminiscing about how he had to clear dead bodies from the battlefield.

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