Edwards – Up the winding road and drive leading to John Shaw Vaughan’s family home sat Hercules.
The name is apropos for the 1969 Jeepster Commando, with its hip-high tires, gigantic jack latched to the back and sticker on the glove box that reads, “Get in, sit down, shut up & hang on.” Painted a rich cherry red, the four-wheeler was Vaughan’s baby. It was Vaughan who built Hercules to its massive proportions and Vaughan who most often took it on wild rides in the hills surrounding the Vail Valley.
Vaughan, a 2nd lieutenant in the Army, died Wednesday fighting near Mosul in Iraq. A platoon leader, Vaughan had been in Iraq only about a month. He was 23.
On Sunday, Hercules sat quiet, as person after person filed by and solemnly signed the guest book resting on its hood. Indeed, a stilled Hercules seemed as out of place and as sad as the nearly 200 people who dressed in dark church clothes on a perfect mountain day and gathered for a memorial service at the home Vaughan grew up in.
The mourners packed into the backyard, where birds’ notes became organ music, glittering aspen leaves became stained glass and trees towering into the azure sky became steeples.
“We were trying to figure out where to have the service,” Vaughan’s little sister, Becca, explained. “And John loved this house so much. So we decided to have it here.”
Joe Horvath, a four-wheeler enthusiast from Denver who taught Vaughan how to build Jeeps when Vaughan was in high school, strolled through the crowd, telling and retelling the story of Hercules, of how Vaughan had used the parts from Hercules I to build Hercules II, which he promptly rolled in Moab. Vaughan rebuilt the Jeep in about two weeks, Horvath said, and then went right back to Moab.
“‘Can’t’ was not in John’s vocabulary,” Horvath said. “He was extremely creative, innovative, intelligent. And he was one of the most stand-up guys you would ever meet.”
Many people told stories about Vaughan. And though they were about things as different as hunting and dancing and bowling, they were all really the same story, one of a great guy and a courageous man lost too soon.
Becca remembered the time when John turned himself into a bowling ball at the local alley and hurled his body down the lane at the pins.
Jason Turner, a friend from college who followed Vaughan into the Army, talked about how Vaughan had been a mentor and hero for him. When Vaughan graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, he was one of 70 cadets, out of about 5,000, to get a prized assignment in military intelligence in the infantry, Turner said.
Several soldiers in Vaughan’s platoon wrote e-mails to Vaughan’s family after his death, each telling his family how grateful the soldiers were for their short time with him.
“It was an honor to serve with him,” one reads. “It was an honor to walk alongside him. It was an honor to call him sir.”
Carmel Cammack, another friend from college, recounted how she and Vaughan became dancing partners.
“We’d just dance country to whatever was playing,” she said.
She said Vaughan was eager to go to Iraq and believed in the mission.
“He wanted to get over there and help his guys,” she said, “and occasionally cause a little mayhem. Nothing … put a smile on his face quite like talking about what he was getting into, the adventure of a lifetime.”
Vaughan will be buried on an unspecified date at a family plot in Florida.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
