2nd Lt. Walter B. Stone laid to rest [a gallery]
Published 5:58 pm Saturday, May 11, 2019
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A family member arrives at the service with roses.
Marcus Stone watches from the steps of Pleasant Home Baptist Church as a military honor guard takes the body of 2nd Lt. Walter "Buster" Stone from the church following a funeral held there Saturday morning.
Marcus Stone was a little boy when he went with his father to take Lt. Stone to an airfield in Florida so that he could deploy to Europe during WWII. It was the last time any of the family saw the pilot.
Bro. Fred Kelley, pastor of Pleasant Home Baptist Church, leads family members from the church to the cemetery.
The crowd gathered for Lt. Stone's interment turns to look as they hear the sounds of the military planes approaching for the flyover.
The military jets appear in the distance
As the jets approach the cemetery, the pilots move into missing man formation.
The honor guard delivers a 21-gun salute
Members of the honor guard stand at attention as a fellow soldier plays "Taps."
The honor guard removes the flags from Lt. Stone's coffin.
"On behalf o fa grateful nation," the flag from Lt. Stone's coffin is presented to his nephew.
Seventy-six years after his plane was shot down over Nazi-occupied France in 1943, 2nd Lt. Walter Stone is finally at rest in the family plot in Pleasant Home.
Services were held at 11 a.m. Saturday, with the Rev. Fred Kelley and the Rev. Wes Alvarez officiating. His body was escorted by members of area law enforcement agencies and a volunteer Patriot Guard as the funeral procession moved from Foreman Funeral Home to Pleasant Home.