Unfair Park from p3 cop told the pastor what happened, Towers’ first thought was of his wife. The couple oc- casionally dined at Luby’s, and he didn’t know if she was there when Hennard ar- rived. He raced home, opened the door and there she was: safe. Back at Luby’s, Al Morris had just con- cluded a gunfight that sent his mind flying back to the jungles of Vietnam. Morris, a Killeen detective, spent a year as a crew chief mechanic and door gunner on a Huey helicopter. He and his men were shot down five times, and on one occasion, a bullet passed through Morris’ shirt. “I was there for a year, and a lot of that flashed back,” Morris told the Herald. “The first month after Luby’s, I had a constant VCR in my head, and all I could see were bodies [lying] on the floor.” Few people can relate to what Morris en- dured. The Vietnam vet engaged in a violent shootout with a man who, he would later learn, had killed 23 of Morris’ neighbors. It only ended when Hennard, wounded by bullets from Morris and fellow officer Ken Olson, took his own life. But the events of Oct. 16 lingered with ev- eryone who was there and countless folks who weren’t. “Simply by definition, mass shootings are more likely to trigger difficulties with beliefs that most of us have, including that we live in a just world, and that if we make good de- cisions, we’ll be safe,” says Laura Wilson, a professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. Research also suggests that mass shootings create lasting trauma. Dr. Lynsey Miron, who survived a mass shooting on her college campus in 2008, found that about 12% of survivors re- port persistent post-traumatic stress disor- der. That’s a higher percentage than the average prevalence of PTSD among trauma survivors as a whole. Towers says he counseled one detective for at least six months after the shooting. Even three decades later, his work is far from finished. “For me, I’m still dealing with the PTSD to a number of people,” he says. Even though he was new to the commu- nity, Towers played a big role in the after- math of the murders. When the media storm inevitably arrived in Killeen that October, Towers tried to defuse what he says was a tense situation. The town of just over 60,000 wasn’t accustomed to that kind of attention, and some of Towers’ parishioners didn’t en- joy sharing the pews with reporters. Yet where some saw inconvenience or morbid curiosity, Towers saw opportunity. He invited the major networks to film his Sunday service provided they didn’t inter- rupt with too much movement, and he agreed to let CBS’ Dan Rather shadow him for a couple days. “We are being presented to the world as a place of tragedy,” Towers told his flock. This was a chance to show them they are more than that. At one point during his time with Rather, 44 the legendary anchor asked Towers if his faith was ever shaken by something like this. They were in the church courtyard, and the cameras were rolling. Mike Brooks “Yes, it is,” Towers replied. But the editor cut out the rest of his response. “If they had shown the rest of what I said, you would have seen me say something like, ‘It’s also times like these that strengthen my faith,’” he says. Then Towers turns to scrip- ture, citing a passage from 1 Peter that reads, in full, “These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of his return.” Towers believes those words will tell you a lot about Killeen. It’s a strong place, he says, that has retained its essential resiliency through multiple shootings and recent tur- moil at Fort Hood. “When the challenges come, we’ve been exposed to and trained by people who say, ‘meet the challenge’” he says. “But are there emotional scars? You bet. When I go to lunch with people, they still don’t want to sit with their back to the door of the restau- rant.” This is something you’ll hear from a lot of Killeen survivors: They like to eat facing the entrance. According to research, it’s a classic trauma response. You want to exert what control you can. You don’t want to be blind- sided. Not again. Tommy Vaughn is one of those survivors. A few years ago, he gave a lengthy interview to Reporting Texas. In the piece, Vaughn talked about how, when he goes out dining, he carefully selects the seat that seems saf- est. He talked about saving lives that day in Luby’s, but he denied that he’s a “hero.” Vaughn, who was 28 at the time of the shooting, is still employed at the same Bel- ton repair shop where he worked in the early 1990s. But a lot else has changed since he saved numerous lives on that day. He met Oprah. He met Dan Quayle. He shed about 130 pounds. And about six years ago, he re- united with one of the women who is proba- bly alive because of him. That woman, Suzanna Gratia Hupp, has been one of the country’s foremost Second Amendment advocates for the last quarter century. Whereas Towers’ voice is soft, Hupp, who shares his Texas drawl, is often emphatic and brimming with passion. “It’s funny, because as much as I do Sec- ond Amendment stuff, I am not a gun per- son,” Hupp tells the Observer. “I am not a hunter. I’m not into guns. Some people might argue that point, but they’d be wrong. I don’t care about guns.” On Oct. 16, 1991, she and her parents went to lunch. O n the way to the restaurant, the main topic of discussion was her parents’ upcoming 50-year anniversary, even though it was three years off. They didn’t want anything extravagant for the celebra- tion; that wasn’t their style. Plus, they still had a few years to plan. But a milestone this big was top-of-mind, and the couple agreed that some kind of family celebration was a must. Hupp describes her mother, Ursula “Suzy” Gratia, as a hardworking woman who put in a lot of hours at the office and at home.. Suzy was an executive secretary at Boeing, where her solid editing skills would help her fix whatever the engineers wrote. She used those skills at home, too. Her husband, Al, was a happy retiree who could either be found on the golf course or working on his forthcoming history book, and Suzy lent her editorial eye whenever she could. In her spare time, Suzy also made her family clothes. On that day in October, the couple were spending time with Suzanna at one of the family’s go-to restaurants. Hupp lived in Copperas Cove at the time, but Killeen was just 15 minutes away. “Back then, there weren’t many places to eat,” Hupp recalls. Plus, she knew the manager at Luby’s. When the trio arrived for lunch, Hupp Suzanna Gratia Hupp lost both of her parents in the Luby’s shooting in 1991. left her handgun in the car. Concealed carry was still illegal at the time, and for several months she had been worrying about the prospect of getting caught with the weapon and losing her chiropractor license. Three decades later, she is still angry about that de- cision. If she had her weapon, she argues, then she could have stopped Hennard. “I was furious at myself for having obeyed a stupid-ass law that resulted in a lot of deaths, my parents included,” she told the Observer. The family was wrapping up their meal when Hennard drove his truck through the glass and started shooting. Once she realized what was happening, Hupp instinctively reached for her purse, where she used to keep her revolver. Then, as she told Texas Monthly six years ago, she remembered the gun was still in her car, “completely useless.” “Could I have hit the guy?” she asked the magazine reporter, running through a list of possible questions. “He was 15 feet from me. He was up. Everybody in the restaurant was down. I’ve hit much smaller targets at much greater distances. Was I completely pre- pared to do it? Absolutely. Could my gun have jammed? It’s a revolver, so it’s possible, but is it likely? Could I have missed? Yeah, it’s possible. But the one thing nobody can argue with is that it would have changed the odds.” Suzy and Al were shot and killed by Hen- nard. Hupp was one of the many people saved by Vaughn, the mechanic, when he flung himself through one of the restaurant’s glass windows. “Is there anyone I can get for you?” the psychiatrist asked Hupp after the shooting. The survivors were gathered in the hotel Towers had left a couple hours earlier, and some people from Fort Hood and the local hospital were on hand to help out. Hupp’s boyfriend was in the service, and she >> p6 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JANUARY 13-19, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
