Aftermath of the IRS Suicide Crash
Shock, horror and disbelief were the main expressions most people had in reaction to the tragic suicide plane crash ala 9/11 at the IRS building in Austin, Texas last Thursday. Quite miraculously, out of about 200 IRS workers in the building, only the pilot and one other man perished in the crash. However, 13 others were injured, some critically. The nation’s condolences go out to the family of the sole IRS victim, Vernon Hunter, 67 a Vietnam war veteran.
To his many friends and neighbors, Vernon Hunter was a very nice man. When his son Ken heard the news, his immediate act was to call his father. His eight calls went unanswered. A few hours later, he was told that his father was missing and Ken began to fear the worst. Ken and his family identified Vernon Hunter’s body last Saturday. When Ken drove to his father’s house, he could see firsthand the destruction caused by the airplane. His wife almost broke down at the scene. Although Ken Hunter was angry at the senseless act and angry at the loss of his father, he said he holds no grudges against the man who committed the act, Joseph Stack III.
Stack left behind a rather detailed account of his personal torment before he died. He was a man angry at the IRS, angry at the government, angry at the Catholic church and even at George W. Bush. In his suicide note, he blamed the government’s tax code for robbing him of his savings and destroying his career while corrupt executives milked the system of millions of dollars.
Former classmates’ and friends’ description of Stack ranged from ‘average person’ to ‘very intense’ and ‘very tightly wound’. He was an accomplished musician who played in the college jazz band, the typical guy who had friends but would stay out of the spot light. He was certainly not the party type, often preferring to be alone. Most of those who knew him concurred that he definitely had a volatile temper but was not a raving maniac. However he would accumulate a lot of wrongs before reaching critical mass when everything explodes. He also had a constant ‘us-verses-them’ mentality although he was not an unfriendly person. This, combined with his brilliant intellect and hair-trigger temper merged into a highly explosive personality.
After completing his studies at Harrisburg Area Community College, Stack married his wife, Ginger and moved to California. They had a daughter who married a Norwegian pilot. Although Stack and Ginger divorced, he would go to Norway every year to visit his daughter and grandchildren.
Perhaps the description by one of Stack’s former classmates sums him up quite well. Bob Hawley, who knew Stack well said, “I don’t believe he was evil. He was just terribly misguided.”
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