Floyd Gardner; Served in WWI and Received France’s High Honor
Floyd Gardner, 99, World War I veteran who received France’s prestigious Legion of Honor in a Beverly Hills ceremony only two years ago, died Saturday, two days before his 100th birthday, at the Veterans Affairs Loma Linda Medical Center.
The Legion of Honor was bestowed on Gardner and other veterans of the Great War in gratitude for the valor of American troops in France more than eight decades earlier.
Gardner, a Utah farm boy, fibbed about his age and enlisted in the Army at 17 at Ft. Logan, Colo., in July 1918. A few months later he was shipped to France.
Standing guard duty one night, he saluted a convoy of vehicles sporting flags and stars. It was a line of officials on their way to sign the Armistice that ended the war on Nov. 11, 1918. Gardner’s unit never reached the front.
He served in France until the following February, then returned to Utah, where he farmed until retiring to California in 1964.
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