LEBANON, Tenn. (WKRN) — It’s been almost 20 years since three Tennessee soldiers lost their lives during an attack in Iraq.
This Memorial Day, News 2 sat down with the family of Sgt. Asbury F. Hawn, a soldier from Lebanon who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
“Memorial Day became different 20 years ago, or close to it,” said Angie Hawn, Asbury's wife.
Angie and her oldest son, John, remember Asbury, who went by Freddie and later dad.
“He was the only father figure that I knew. Shortly after they got married, he adopted me,” John Hawn, Asbury's son, said.
In 1999, Angie and Asbury got married at the chapel in Cannonsburgh Village. They would then have a son named Spencer before Asbury was deployed to Iraq.
“Part of it was going over there to protect the people that couldn’t protect themselves,” John said.
For Asbury, when he was away from his family, he found joy in spending time with Iraqi children in the villages.
“One time he called me and was, 'Hey, can you send me a printer so I can print our pictures and take them to the villages and pass them out to kids, because they’ve never seen pictures of themselves?'" Angie said.
It was Aug. 13, 2005, when Asbury was responding to one of the villages that was under fire. Angie said he was killed by a roadside bomb.
“He was such an amazing man and father, I can only imagine what he would have been like when he got home,” Asbury's youngest son, Spencer, said.
Spencer was four years old when he lost his father.
“Its taken a long time just to be able to talk about it,” John said.
Nearly twenty years later, John and Spencer hold onto the memories they have with their father, who they now call a hero.
“One of the last conversations I had with him I was able to say, ‘I love you, dad,’ at the end of the call,” John said.
