OKLAHOMA CITY – Four months after Dawn Woody married her husband, he was killed in a bombing in Saudi Arabia.
Airman 1st Class Joshua Woody, 20, was among 19 U.S. Air Force personnel killed and nearly 500 people injured when a truck bomb was detonated on June 25, 1996 near the Khobar Tower housing complex where coalition forces resided.
He had been due to return home from his deployment the next day.
On Tuesday, Woody’s widow, Dawn, celebrated Gov. Kevin Stitt’s decision to sign House Bill 4486, which would make the state the 10th in the country to erect a Gold Star Families Monument on Capitol grounds using private funds raised by the Woody Williams Foundation.
The organization, which serves families, whose spouse, parent, child, or sibling was killed while serving in the military, has already paid for three other such monuments in the state.
Joshua Woody, who was not related to the foundation, would have loved the idea of having a space for Gold Star family members, said Dawn Woody, 53, a Pryor native who is a retired U.S. Secret Service agent now living in Lavonia, Ga.
Joshua Woody, a California native, is buried in Florida, she said.
Some family members don’t have a place to go to remember a loved one while others must travel long distances, she said.
“I think that people could come there and be comforted,” she said.
It would also serve as a place of comfort for service members who live with survivor’s guilt and be a source of education for kids to learn about the military and Gold Star Families, she said.
Families began using the gold star during World War I to symbolize that they had lost a family member in the conflict.
Sen. Kelly Hines, R-Oklahoma City, the Senate author, said he lost soldiers he commanded in the military and had to talk to their survivors about why their loved ones didn’t come home.
“It is the least we can do to honor those families,” said Hines, a retired U.S. Army colonel.
Rep. Tammy Townley, R-Ardmore, the House author, said the monument will be near the arch, which is currently under construction on the south grounds of the Capitol.
The arch honors the 45th Division of the Oklahoma National Guard.
Katie Howard, director of operations for memorial monuments at the Woody Williams Foundation, said there are 154 monuments across the country, including nine on capitol grounds, and nearly 50 pending.
The specific timeline and installation details for Oklahoma’s Capitol monument are still being discussed, Howard said.
Oklahoma has similar monuments in Lawton, Shawnee, and Owasso. Others are pending in Tulsa and the southwest Oklahoma town of Blair, according to the Woody Williams Foundation website.
The costs range from $48,000 to $60,000 per monument, Howard said.
Each is constructed in black granite and features a cutout of a silhouette of a service member saluting. The monuments contain four panels which are inscribed on both sides.
Even though her husband died nearly three decades ago, Dawn Woody said she vividly remembers the first time she met Joshua Woody, describing it as similar to a “cheesy movie.”
She was wearing a Kermit the Frog T-shirt and cutoff shorts when she met Joshua Woody at a 1995 pool party in Miami, Okla.
“I wasn’t planning on meeting anyone,” she said.
Their eyes locked from across the room and then a conversation started, she said.
He was stationed in Texas at the time and came to Oklahoma to visit friends, she said.
She said Joshua Woody, whom his friends called “Woody,” was super funny, a kind soul and athletic.
He carried the poem “Success,” by Ralph Waldo Emmerson, in his pocket. The poem describes what it means to succeed in life, including leaving the world better.
Republished in partnership with Oklahoma Voice under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Oklahoma Voice is a part of States Newsroom which is a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and Twitter.
Barbara Hoberock is a senior reporter with Oklahoma Voice. She has covered the statehouse since 1994 and served as Tulsa World Capitol Bureau chief. Hoberock covers statewide elected officials, the legislature, agencies, state issues, appellate courts and elections.
