PHOENIX -- A centenarian regarded as the last surviving veteran of the Spanish-American War era plans to celebrate Veterans Day this year by sending a greeting to U.S. military personnel around the world.
Nathan Cook, 103, gave up a 50-cents-a-day job at a Kansas City packing plant at the age of 15 to enlist in the Navy after seeing a street poster that beckoned, 'Join The Navy and See the World.'
During a 44-year Navy career that began with training at the tailend of America's war with Spain, Cook was once taken for dead, packed in ice and shipped off as a corpse, but he returned to active duty to serve in two world wars.
'I don't feel old, I feel young yet,' Cook wrote in a message that will be delivered Friday to the 500,000 American men and women serving at military installations around the world.
'I'm glad to be able to send greetings to all servicemen this Veterans Day,' Cook said. 'You can be proud of your military service.'
His message, to be telefaxed to 21 bases and numerous American warships on active duty, added that his best advice for young people is 'save your money.'
The message was planned as part of Lanier Voice Products Division's 'From America With Love' program, designed by the telecommunications firm to ensure that every member of the military receives a letter from someone on Veterans Day.
From his room at 'Fort Courage,' the nursing home at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Phoenix, Cook recalled how he fooled the Navy into letting him enlist on April 19, 1901, when he was just a boy.
Cook, who persuaded a sister to sign his enlistment papers indicating he was 17, went to the Kansas City recruitment office with a nephew who also planned to join but backed out at the last moment.
'The Navy wasn't taking youngsters like myself,' Cook said. 'One of the sailors came out into the crowd and told us that the next time they open the doors, go in and don't say anything about your age. Once you get inside, they'll take you. And they did.'
Cook said he was shipped off to California, where he spent time 'sailing up and down the coast between San Francisco and San Diego, Calif.
'We didn't see any real war,' he said. 'We just trained at it.'
The Spanish-American War formally ended when the Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris in 1899. But the VA Medical Center in Phoenix said the agency regards the conflict as having ended on April 2, 1902, when the last U.S. troops left Cuba. For that reason, it lists Cook as the last surviving veteran of the war, even though he never actually saw service in Cuba.
Cook said he started off earning $15 a month in the Navy until he 'got lucky' and was promoted to boatsmate first class and boatsmate second class, each of which carried a $5 raise.
Nicknamed 'Northeast' because of his initials N.E., Cook used a friend's influence to get him into battle in World War I. He eventually became an officer, and in Greece, he was placed in command of a subchaser. He was transferred to Brest, France, and took command of a sub-tender.
Off the coast of France, Cook rescued a ship that had been torpedoed and was towing it back to Brest when he was told two torpedoes were headed for his ship.
'I said, 'Ship hard right,'' Cook recalled. 'My intention was to try and get between the course of the two torpedoes so that we wouldn't get hit. And we had luck, we missed the torpedoes.'
During World War II, Cook commanded a sea-going tug stationed at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and later a sub-tender and mine sweeper in Panama. He completed his Navy career in 1945 as head of a shore patrol detachment.
Cook never was wounded in battle, but doctors thought he had died when his appendix burst while he was assigned to the USS Kansas off the coast of Gibraltar in 1908.
'The captain notified my wife that they would try to bring my body home for burial,' Cook said. He said they packed him in ice, but he regained consciousness.
They kept him packed in ice until he arrived in Philadelphia, where doctors performed surgery and learned his appendix had ruptured and dried up.
Another freak injury ended his military career on Veterans Day (then Armistice Day) Nov 11, 1945. Cook was injured when he was run over by a truck on a pier.
Although he had only a sixth-grade education, Cook achieved the rank of lieutenant, the equivalent of a captain in the Army.
'The officers liked me and pushed me up as fast as they could,' he said.
Cook married his wife, Elizabeth, who he met at a Navy ball in New York's Tammany Hall, in 1905. He entered Fort Courage in 1982 after his wife died.
These days, Cook gets up each morning, has breakfast in the main dining hall, exercises, then often plays checkers before returning to his room. After lunch in the dining hall, he naps until dinner time.
Asked the secret of living to be 103, Cook said, 'I've never drank (alcohol). Seven (7-UP) and tonic was my drink. I'd go to bars with the gang on liberty and get seven and tonic in a whiskey glass. They all thought I was a big drinker.'
