Captain Harris and I served at three bases together and our association was always great. He was one of the check pilots at Vance AFB, Ok and I flew with him at least once during my B-26 check out, I also remember Manzer Thompson that later joined me in the 822nd, he gave me my final check ride at Vance and I thought he was mean because he made me fly almost all of my final check ride on a single engine, I got over that and I think we are still friends. Capt Harris who had served in Korea was first assigned to the 71st then went on to Wing Hq and was the slot pilot with the Black Knights aerobatic team that the 38th BW sponsored, He was one of the stan-eval pilots that all us other pilots got to know. John was always fair and pointed out mistakes politely but still demanding in that he would not accept any weak or shakey pilots in the Wing. I caught hell many times but survived each time. Some of my buddys fell by the wayside and it had to be that way, weak pilots can’t do the mission and they sometimes kill people including themselves.

Lt Col Harris and I knew we were in Vietnam at the same time but we never got together. He was flying a special recce B-57 called Patty Lynn and I was flying night missions in Laos, hurling my pink chubby body at the earth and then trying to avoid it, that is another of Nails Nelson’s
statements, he had a million of them. He is gone but not forgotten. I eventually became a Chief of Maintenance and was stationed at Westover AFB and Col Harris was our new Commander. We along with Don Jones had very good luck in not having any accidents until the Squadron was deactivated. Yes we had a belly landing, he simply forgot to put down the gear, thanks to the belly landing kit that Warner-Robbins had developed we did the repair within the man hour limit
and it was declared an incident. Another pilot blew a camopy once because the cockpit got too hot and that was declared an incident, lucky again. But one accident we should have been blamed for, because we had changed out the engine on the airplane but it belonged to our sister squadron. We had been charged charged with the responsibility of changing out the engines for both squadrons. The Navy had used a similar but later version of the J-65 in several of their aircraft and our engine had become out dated, we saw the wisdom in changing them out.

It took about a year, long enough to get some really good APRs written on those guys in the engine shop. That was the year that our insignificant squadron got more people promoted in the Sergeant ranks than any other squadron in the Air Force. I hope Col Harris and Kirby Nunn where as proud as I was. I can’t take credit for those promotions because I had a real court recorder working for me and we set up a system where she would interview a supervisor that was supposed to write an APR. She would take her notes and build an APR and then send it to me for an endorsement, I would then add several suggested endorsements along with my endorsement. There where so many accomplishments to give credit for that none of the higher ups would argue that these guys had done something special. Aparently they agreed.

That is when I learned that giving credit to other’s is better than keeping it for your self . It was also a release from bucking for promotion. I settled into a mode that allowed me to spend the rest of my Air Force career doing every thing I was assigned to do. Like Zaragosa, Spain, Nelly and I went there as maintenance supervisor for our Wing during gunnery practice, I knew my chances for promotion where nil so I did what had to do, yeah I put in 15 hour days, but also spent the weekends touring the country sides. I will never forget the many sights and vistas, Spain is one of those places that leaves you with many memories. We also got to attend a Formula One race at Barcelona and a week later the Grand prix at Morocco. That was the year Mark Donahue was doing so well when he made a mistake and crashed at the end of a straight, he ran out of brakes, I caught up with him on his way back to the pits and he said “I screwed up”, I admire those people that can admit failures. He is obviously one of them. But is long since gone.

Soon thereafter I got the word that I had been passed over and would be
retired, it was not unexpected they had raised the bar that Lt Cols should have a masters degree and I only had a high school diploma, I accepted my fate and hoped for the best. I finished my Economics and
Business degree shortly after retirement and went on to a civilian life. Nelly and the kids were very supportive as we tried to find our niche in
the civilian world. We tried Florida but work I felt qualified for was almost nonexistent. So we moved to Huntsville where more technical work was available. I turned down two jobs because I thought I was not qualified, all I knew about computers at that time was that Robin and I had built a computer for one of my professors at college and it had 16 switches to imput data and an enter switch that was used to program it. Robin grasped the concept pretty quickly but I fell behind. It was many years later that I realised I could be a computer user without knowing all the inner workings or the programs. Now as long as I can send and receive e-mail all is well, yes the Internet is nice but I am some what afraid of it
because once you log on you get way too many e-mail’s wanting something I’ve Learned to avoid those traps as well as those offers of being the last enheritor to a fortune held in some foreign country bank.

Yeah, Col Harris was one of my best commanders. he was also a mentor for my son Robin, he gave him radio control eqiipment and then helpt him learn to fly radio control models. Meanwhile he and the rest of us ran a
pretty good Squdran that got some credits along the way but I have to say he was the best boss I ever had. And he knows that he is one of my
mentors. Yes, I know he will be embarrassed by this but it is better that I say what I feel than to wait and write it as a eulogy. He has been a great person to know and to serve for. Bob ..