A Vietnam War veteran literally went out with a bang on Saturday, the St. George Spectrum newspaper reports.
The son of Walter “Jim” Hosey of LaVerkin, Utah, loaded a total of 50 shotgun shells with his father’s ashes and fired them off at the Southern Utah Shooting Sports Park in Hurricane with the help of relatives and friends.
His son, Clint Hosey, says: “I think he got a kick out of that.”
The newspaper reports that Walter Hosey, who often visited the sports park, died on Jan. 2.
Spilsbury funeral director Mark Heiner called the firing of the shells “a fitting tribute to the way he lived.”
Heiner told the Spectrum that he has read about funeral ashes being loaded into shells for memorial shooting, but it’s the first instance he knows of in Utah.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I love it and could we make this an accepted manner of funerals and disposition of our loved ones ashes…I just loved it, my vet would love it also.
First, I am a Korean veteran and my love for God and Country is in my very blood. For a believer in Jesus Christ, our body is temple of the Holy Spirit; therefore, one cannot dispose of it in any way one chooses. I personally feel the body is to be treated with greatest respect. I find being shot out a gun as a way to celebrate one’s life is to me beyond the pale. But that is just my opinion.
When you are dead your spirit goes to one of two places, heaven or hell. Your body remain here on earth. You have no longer use for it and neither does your surviving family. If it is one’s choice to be cremated so be it. I too am a Christian and will be cremated. In the resurrection, we will receive new bodies. In which I look forward to. No more pain, no more glasses, no more agent orange, no more worries.