It has been said that death is a great equalizer. But there doesn’t seem to be much equal in the lives of Internal Revenue Service employee Vernon Hunter and the man who caused his death.

Joe Stack – who now, like Charles Whitman, will live in Austin infamy – killed Hunter by flying a small airplane into the northwest Austin building where Hunter worked.

This senseless and despicable act of domestic terrorism cost Stack his own life as well. And while his loved ones might understandably want him back, under any circumstances, he has at least spared them the endless high-profile humiliation a criminal trial would bring.

Poet John Donne wrote that no man is an island. And that he, therefore, is a part of all mankind – with every man’s death diminishing him.

So we cannot truly say of Stack: Good riddance to bad rubbish. We can rightly mourn a man who allowed himself to become so warped and weak, while at the same time with our every breath condemning that end result of that warped weakness.

And yet, this writer also cannot help seeing the contrast between these two men, Vernon Hunter and Joe Stack, who were strangers in life but who are now, in death, forever joined.

Stack – as we all know by now – went on for a few thousand words in his final blog, writing about how hard he had it. He railed about perceived corruption at the IRS and in the Catholic Church, and he didn’t much care for Austin, either.

So Stack thought he had it tough?

It is doubtful he had it any tougher than any number of people, least of all Vernon Hunter. Hunter’s age (68) and his skin color (black) tell us he was an African-American who was born in the 1940s and came of age in the 1950s. There have been easier rows to hoe in this country.

Hunter joined the U.S. Army after high school and served a 20-year career, including two tours of duty in Vietnam. Again, there are easier rows to hoe.

One of those easier rows might have been Joe Stack’s. Despite his job and money and tax troubles, he still had the time to play in a band and the means to own an airplane.

Nobody really knows what another person goes through. But, that said, we doubt Joe Stack went hungry a day in his life. Sorry, but college-student tales of living on Raman noodles and peanut butter don’t count.

We doubt anybody ever held a gun to Joe Stack’s head, telling him how he had to vote or how he had to pray.

Life is never easy. Perhaps it is not meant to be and perhaps it is true, that only the dead know peace. Still, there are worse fates a man could have, than being a 20th- and 21st-century American. There are harder crosses to bear.

Which is worth remembering, in these often hard and often confusing times.

It is worth remembering we are all in this together.

It is worth remembering John Donne: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

– Brad Stutzman