Final Salute

Family members, friends and fellow combat veterans gathered in a large room in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Bryan Tutten Memorial Post 2391 in St. Augustine Friday afternoon to remember the last of the post’s greatest generation.

Ray Klett, who was 98 when he died on Feb. 27, was the last member of the VFW post to serve in World War II.

A photograph of Ray Klett sits on a table before his memorial service at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Bryan Tutten Memorial Post 2391 in St. Augustine on Friday. Klett, who was 98 when he died on Feb. 27, was the last member of the VFW post to serve in World War II.
Enlisting in the Navy Seabees when he was 17, he saw action on islands across the Pacific fighting the Japanese.

“He didn’t talk about it too much, and we veterans say if you keep talking about it over and over and over, you’re lying, but if you tell the full story one time and that is the truth,” said his son-in-law Ret. U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Galen Wilson. “Ray told me one time, and he didn’t go into detail. He was a hero.”

Klett moved to St. Augustine in the 1980s after retiring from AT&T as an engineer; he continued working in maintenance jobs in the area until he was 93, said Wilson.

Post Commander Bob Daugherty remembers Klett as a great man.

“He would do anything for anyone at any time,” Daughtery said, “He loved his country, he loved his family, and was proud to be a veteran.”

According to Daughtery, out of a membership of nearly 1,000 veterans at his post, Klett was the last member to serve in World War II.

“We are seeing the last of this great generation that we owe so much to, and it is sad,” he said.