Meet Old Mission’s Jim Truck

This veteran turned horse trainer turned painter shares the story of his 81 years

By Art Bukowski | June 27, 2026

College football player. Vietnam chopper pilot. Master-class horse trainer. World traveler. Banker. Painter. Author.

Jim Truck has jammed quite a bit into his 81 years. And his story isn’t done yet.

“My mom was 96. Basically went to sleep one night and didn’t get up. She was healthy well into her nineties,” he says. “So I plan to go ahead and try to get to 100, and during that time I plan to write more books and paint more paintings. I don’t plan on slowing down.”

Truck lives on Old Mission Peninsula and sat down with Northern Express to share snippets of his eventful life.

Young Lessons

Born into a farming family in Nebraska, Truck grew up in southern California after his family moved there in search of a better life. It was a pretty sweet deal, he recalls. The family never had a lot, but they certainly had enough.

“I grew up in the sixties, which was the premier time to grow up in America, and I grew up in the right place,” he says. “I can remember surfing in January on a 25-foot wave while I looked up at the snow on the San Gabriel mountains.”

Truck played college football at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) before enlisting in the U.S. Army and eventually doing two tours in Vietnam, with time at a base in Europe in between.

In Vietnam he flew helicopter gunships, earning three bronze stars and 37 air medals, he says. It was a grim situation, with “so much death.” He’s come to realize now that it was a war that shouldn’t have been fought, he says, though through his own role he learned many valuable lessons.

“From that time I gained the realization of how important life is, and how narrow that little band of life is. I’ve had a guy right next to me with his guts hanging out. Seen a guy in a bunker with a hole this big in his shoulder,” he says. “I had bullets go right by me, had one hit my helmet, had one go between my legs. But I never got hit. Just one of those things.”

In between his tours in Vietnam he was stationed in Germany, where he met and married his wife Chris (they remain married to this day, 57 years later). They traveled all around Europe in a Jaguar, visiting as many art museums as they could (more on that below).

Truck was stationed at Fort Knox after returning stateside, where he promptly got in harm’s way via an encounter with a drunk fellow serviceman.

“After spending years in Vietnam and dodging all those bullets, I was literally back three weeks and I lost my spleen in a head-on collision,” he says. “They had to shock me back to life.”

A Horse Man

It was at Fort Gordon, Georgia, when Truck first took up a serious interest in horse riding and training. He started hanging out with a family who had practiced the hunter-jumper discipline for generations, and he found he had quite the knack for it.

One thing led to another, and he was roped into leading the 1st Calvary Division’s Horse Calvary Detachment, an equestrian military unit of the Army. Not unlike the Navy’s Blue Angels, it travels around the country for public relations and recruiting reasons.

“I had 20 horses, four mules, and three great big trucks. An old wagon and all of that kind of stuff,” Truck says. “We made every small town parade [you could imagine].”

Then, after finally getting out of active service for good, he moved back near Fort Knox, built a barn and began to train, breed, and ride horses. He eventually became a riding instructor and coached many students to national awards, and became an American Horse Show Association judge, traveling around the country for shows.

“They’re an absolutely amazing animal,” he says of horses. “And they tell us about our history. When you talk about the history of America, the horse is such an integral part of it. They’re just magnificent animals.”

Then came about 30 years of banking (a friend offered him a job, starting this long career), during which he rose to the president and CEO of two banks in Houston and Corpus Christi, Texas. Along the way, he received a master’s degree from the University of Houston.

“The neat thing about banking, especially at community banks, is you get to meet people and you get to see and facilitate change,” Truck says. “You see good, you see bad, you see lots of shysters, but you can actually lend to good people and see them grow…and it made you feel really good because you’d call on ’em and they’d say, ‘If you hadn’t of lent me that money, I never could have done this.’”

Fun fact: Truck was one of the original lenders of the now very large Buc-ee’s chain of general stores, working with founder Arch Aplin.

Making Time for Art

While living in Texas, Truck made a friend from a little place called Traverse City. In a story that’s played out thousands of times over the years, the Trucks came here with that friend and fell in love with the place.

After visiting a few times, they bought a place on Old Mission Peninsula, where they moved full time in 2010 when Truck retired.

“We had looked at every state, and there isn’t any other place I’d rather be than right here,” Truck says.

Now, he spends most of his time painting and writing. The urge to paint started way back when he toured art museums in Europe, and he now finally has plenty of time to commit to this craft. His home is adorned with dozens of his own paintings, which also hang in the homes of friends and acquaintances.

“I saw a photo of my sister-in-law’s two daughters together, and I painted it. When I gave it to her, she cried,” he says. “She said ‘I put this in a special place, so if there’s a fire, I can grab it on the way out.’ What better feedback can you get?”

Painting, Truck says, is a great way to keep the mind fresh. “Every time I paint, I learn,” he says. “A new technique, some new thing, and it stimulates me.”

He’s written and self-published several books as well, mostly historical fiction, and the inspiration comes from everywhere.

“We were driving home from [a medical appointment] at the University of Michigan, and I saw this little granite boulder. And somebody had painted on it: ‘God is Love,’” he says. “And I’m thinking: I can write a book about that. I wrote a 350-page book about the girl who painted that rock.”

Where all of this creative output comes from is anyone’s guess.

“My dad was not artistic. My mom was not, either. Nobody in my family’s artistic,” he says. “I guess it’s just one of those genes I picked up along the line.”

Through all those travels, jobs, dangers, and adventures, one thing remains true for Truck.

“I’ve seen enough of the world to know that I was very lucky to have been born in America. What a deal. It’s the absolute best thing anyone can have happen to them.”