Oklahoma veteran to get dying wish with help of community
By Alyse Jones
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OKLAHOMA (KOCO) — An Oklahoma veteran who died over the weekend will have one final ride on Friday.
KOCO 5 first met Buck Jones, a U.S. Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, in early October, when hundreds of Oklahomans brought their classic cars to his driveway. Now, his family said they want to give him one last ride.
“It’s incredibly humbling,” Ashley Jones, Buck’s granddaughter, said.
In October, the classic cars flooded Highway 77 in Guthrie in honor of Buck. It was one of his final wishes to see the cars go by his driveway.
Now that Buck has died, his family wants to give him a final farewell in style and in the thing he loved the most.
“This last week with him, every single day when I was with him, he’d ask me and make me promise him I’d do my hardest to make his final ride into the cemetery in a ‘56 Chevy Cameo,” Ashley said.
Through social media outreach, a page called “The Old Truck Guy” helped line up a Chevy Cameo to take Buck home. The truck is coming from Arkansas City, Kansas, but it won’t be cheap to get here.
Now, the community is stepping up to make his final ride possible.
“We have several other people commenting, willing to donate several hundreds of dollars and people willing to match those donations,” Ashley said.
But the family said Grandpa Buck always went the extra mile, and they now hope to honor the Vietnam veteran by lining the streets with Cameos, Chevy hardtops and any classic car or motorcycle.
“Everything is coming together for him, and that is insanely beautiful, and we are so thankful and just completely humbled by this experience,” Ashley said.
The service will be at 10 a.m. Friday at Soldier Creek Baptist Church in Midwest City.
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