CHAPTER THREE - PRIME TIME

 I can't remember exactly when this happened but I believe it was during the summer of 1984 after we came back from Little Rock that TSgt Sam Adams shot himself in the stomach and was found dead sitting in his bath tub. Sam had always struck me as being a very nice guy but shy and reserved. Guys in the unit would pick on him in a good natured way but he never seemed to be bothered by it. I was told that he and his wife were having some problems but his suicide came as a total shock to me. Sam was given a full military funeral and I was honored to be a part of his firing squad. 

 In the late summer, or early Fall, of 1984 we began to see a change in my brother-in-law Hulon and he appeared to be having anxiety attacks. Hulon was losing weight and looking pretty bad. On Thanksgiving Day of 1984 we spent the day with Debbie's daddy and stopped by Judy's before going home. I was shocked when I saw how he looked while sitting in a rocking chair in his living room. The look on his face gave me a flashback to January 16, 1963 when I saw a similar look on my dad's face. Not only did he have that look but he was hunched over, very skinny, and gaunt looking. Daddy never lost weight, or looked sick, but Hulon did.  I had never seen Hulon like this in all the years I had known him. My sister-in-law Judy was standing in the kitchen and I told her in a low voice that she needed to get Hulon some help. Several days later, in the early evening, Debbie answered a phone call. After hanging up she told me that Hulon had shot himself and we needed to go to Nashville. At that point we didn't know if he was dead or alive.

 I called Mark, and after picking him up at his house in Smyrna, we prayed and sang gospel songs all the way to East Nashville. We were trying to bolster our spirits for whatever situation we might find when we got there. The first thing that we encountered, as we turned on to Hayden Drive, was a car belonging to a reporter that had crashed into a ditch trying to get to Hulon's house. Several police cars were in front of the house and an ambulance was sitting in the driveway. Debbie's sister Sylvia gave us the news that we had been dreading. Hulon was dead and the body was still in the garage. I didn't want to see Hulon that way so Judy's neighbor was nice enough to let us stand in her second story bedroom where we could see the door to Judy's garage. 

 Eventually we watched as Hulon was wheeled out in a body bag and placed in the waiting ambulance. We then walked down to the garage where the clean-up was in progress. My brother-in-law John Heaney, who was a Metro Nashville Vice Squad officer, and Sylvia's husband, was washing blood and brains off of the floor and the walls of the garage with a garden hose. We joined in the clean-up effort and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Blood and brain matter was everywhere. Judy was in a state of shock and trying to help while we were trying to make her go in the house to no avail.

 After finishing the clean-up we learned of the events that transpired that day. Judy had taken Hulon to the doctor for a physical and after returning home it was decided that Judy and the kids would go to a fast food restaurant and pick up some food for supper. At some point, after they left, Hulon walked to the kitchen where he kept his .38 caliber service revolver on top of the refrigerator. He worked for Wells Fargo armored car security services. Hulon placed the gun to the right side of his head and pulled the trigger. The back door to the garage from the kitchen was open and Hulon fell head first into the garage, which was about two feet lower than the kitchen floor. In that head down position he bled out into the garage. 

 Hulon's house was designed exactly like our house on Henry Ford Drive and it brought back images to me of my father falling backwards from the kitchen into our garage banging his head on the concrete floor when he was drunk. Unfortunately he survived that fall. When Judy and the kids returned from buying food Nathan was the first to enter the garage. I am thinking that he was about three or four at the time. Judy said that he stopped dead in his tracks at the side door entrance of the garage. Nathan was the first to see his daddy's body. When Judy saw Hulon she called 911. Recently she told me that he had problems with his thyroid which probably contributed to his suicide.

 Hulon came from a large family and he had a brother that also committed suicide. I don't think that I have ever had a friend that was as close to me as Hulon. We could tell each other our deepest and darkest secrets. He was like a brother to me and I was brokenhearted about his death but angry at the same time. To me suicide is the most selfish act that a person can commit. The person doing it is so focused on their own problems that they refuse to consider how their loved ones are impacted. I must confess that I have briefly thought about suicide several times in my life. My biggest deterrent, besides the fact that I am a coward, is that I remember how I felt after my fathers suicide and the murder of my mother. I don't want to ever hurt my family like my father hurt us. The person that commits suicide wants to live but they kill themselves to end a physical or emotional pain that they are going through. In the end it takes real courage to overcome the obstacles of life and the ones who can do this are the real heroes.