Daymond Young comes home
Layman Hawkins and Harvey Hawkins talk about their emotional experience as they brought their uncle Daymond Young’s remains home after he was killed on the U.S.S. Oklahoma 79+ years ago. If you weren’t in Hancock County to experience this event, you can close your eyes and not only see, but also you can feel the intense emotions of the day.
“When we came across this bridge in Hawesville I was holding up pretty good, and then we saw all these people with video cameras and seeing everybody showing up is when we broke up,” says Harvey. There were people ALL standing out here in Hawesville. “There were people from Louisville too because they shut down the interstate. People were backed up five miles behind us which started from the Louisville airport.”
“People were standing on the road saluting, and cars pulled over on the interstate,” said Layman. “There were over 100 + motorcycles from Rolling Thunder at the airport. We went out on the tarmac and took pictures of them unloading the casket off the plane. That’s when Rolling Thunder started out and led in front of the hearse, and we followed them out on the Watterson expressway back to Interstate 64, all the way into Hancock County. “
“When we came into Hawesville and people were standing out with the flags and everything, that’s when the emotions really hit,” said Layman. “The Hawesville Fire Department had their trucks at each road all the way down to the high school. There was one at the Vastwood Park entrance and right before the high school and there were a couple other entrances where fire trucks were parked.”
The firemen were all dressed in their whites, standing at attention with their arms behind them, showing respect.
“Lewisport had put out 600 American Flags on the route from the funeral home to the cemetery, and Tell City had their ladder truck with a huge flag hanging just as we crossed the railroad track towards the cemetery,” said Layman.
As the Hawkins family made their way through Lewisport to Gibson & Son Funeral Home, their emotions fell apart again. “I couldn’t even talk when I got out,” said Layman. “I couldn’t either,” Harvey said. “I had tears in my eyes and Layman did too. Then we looked over at Jody (Hawkins), who’s an ex-Marine and a retired state trooper, and he was just as tough as he could be, and then all the sudden he was just like the rest of us.”
“The thing of it is, Layman says, none of us knew Daymond because none of us were born when he died, but our mother talked about him so much and our grandmother too, we felt like we knew him better than the uncles we actually got to meet.”
Harvey added, “I was emotional when mother and dad died and I was emotional when my bother Bobby and his wife Dawn died; that was natural. But nothing prepared me for this. I’ll never experience anything like this again and I don’t believe my heart would stand it.”
“I think mother would be proud of what we did, because I don’t think we could have done anymore because it was so overwhelming in my opinion,” said Layman.
“The people that do this; D.A. Gibson with the funeral home, his work, well what can you say; he knows what he’s doing, and the Rolling Thunder people too,” said Harvey. Harvey talked to one guy who explained he was a pharmacist out of Cleveland Ohio. Harvey said, “What are you doing down here?” He replied, “I go wherever they call for me.”
Most of the Rolling Thunder had professional jobs they had to go back to, which they did on Saturday. Layman mentioned he spoke with one of the Rolling Thunder guys who said they all get emotional, and another who said he had been present for 30 of the events.
“I want to praise the guy from Illinois, Jeff Hastings, the flag man. He came over here free of charge, no expenses what-so-ever, and he’s the one that supplied all the flags and he’s the one who put out all the alerts to the papers and emails to volunteers, and they all showed up. They put all the flags up in an hour and a half. He does this full time and was leaving next to go to Central City,” said Layman. Harvey mentioned two Trapp brothers from Indiana who were also on the Oklahoma, were just announced. Hastings said, “Yeah, we’ll catch that one too.”
Layman and Harvey said there was no more standing room inside the funeral home. The funeral home was completely full and yet they all spoke and told them who they were. ”We were like WOW, yeah we know who you are,” said Harvey. “We just hadn’t seen them in years and also relatives we hadn’t seen in 30 or 40 years. I loved seeing my daughter with the older 17-year-old granddaughter, her and especially my son Jason. He and his wife live upstate New York and I hadn’t seen them since 2015,” said Harvey.
“We want to emphasize the community involvement and praise them, as I think this is the most important thing the way the community came together,” said Layman. They really cared. “I bet you a hundred thousand pictures and videos were made,” said Harvey.
Jody and wife Susan who live on the river in Lewisport had a huge tent erected for 120 people, which was catered by Bill and Dave’s BBQ, who is also related to the Hawkins. “The tent was just for the Young family and invited guests,” said Layman. “We couldn’t invite the whole community but most all who attended were our family. Our family is huge.”
The tent celebration went on for hours. The Baptist and Methodist Pastors and Catholic Priest were present. “Bobby and Dawn are Methodist and Mary and I are Catholics and the rest of us are Baptist, so we had to cover all the bases on the religious side,” said Layman. “They all did an excellent job speaking.”
Layman said, “The thing I want to emphasis again, is the fact of the way this community came together. Especially this (Clarion) newspaper,” added Harvey. This newspaper has been outstanding,” said Layman.
By Linda Dillon
