Vietnam Vet's Ashes Spread With an Actual Bang

A Vietnam War veteran literally went out with a bang on Saturday, reports the St. George Spectrum. The son of Walter "Jim" Hosey of LaVerkin, Utah, loaded a total of 50 12-gauge 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. "I think he got a kick out of that," Clint Hosey says. Walter Hosey, who often visited the sports park, died on Jan. 2.

"It’s the first time for me that a veteran’s or an individual’s ashes were made into ammunition and then fired through a shotgun," Spilsbury funeral director Mark Heiner says, calling the ceremony "a fitting tribute to the way he lived." Says Clint Hosey of his father's affinity for shooting: "As soon as I could hold a pellet gun up, I was learning to shoot. Dad was always looking for a good time." (More strange stuff stories.)