Jerry A. Goodson

Harold Albert Rumzek, Ph.D, Major USAF (Retired)

May 1, 1938 - August 14, 2023

Meeting Harry

I met Harry in the last half of 1994 when I was a junior in high school. I worked as a dishwasher at the Carswell Club on what recently became Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, and after my shift and off days, I would hang out in the bar. Harry was one of the few retired officers I befriended while hanging out there... or should I say, he befriended me in a most unusual way.

I was seventeen years old. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have been allowed in the bar. However, I worked there and nobody objected to me hanging out with my co-workers after my shifts or my days off. The bartenders were active duty Marines who worked there to make some extra money when they weren't on duty. I, often, tried to get them to let me consume alcohol, but I was never successful.

One night, I'm sitting at the bar chatting with Rick, one of those off-duty Marines who was tending bar. Sitting next to me was a lady I didn't know and looked like she was older than my mother. I've seen her in the bar in the past, but I was a young kid, and she was a regular bar fly that I had zero interest in getting to know. The bar wasn't particularly busy this night, but several folks came and went as the night moved on, and I reckon she was waiting on the right patron to come along to take her home.

She was nursing her drink as I continued chatting with Rick. This lady took a cigarette and lighter out of her little cigarette purse just a few moments before I would start getting to know Harry. She was lighting her cigarette as I felt a large slap on the back of my head. It wasn't a high impact slap meant to cause me pain, but more of a pushing slap that almost planted my face in my drink glass obviously meant to get my attention. I hadn't yet recovered from the shock of getting slapped in the back of my head as I turned around wondering, "What the hell!"

I turned to see these big bulging eyes and turtle mouth of an old man who wasted no time in warning me, "Don't you ever let a woman sitting next to you light her own cigarette!"

There were SO many things going through my head at this instant! Is this old man wanting to fight me? Can he best me despite his apparent advanced age? Am I in the wrong? Am I going to get fired? Am I going to jail? What should I do???? I pushed passed being speechless and replied, "Yes, sir."

Harry bought the lady a drink and apologized for "his friend." His invitation for me to join him and his friends at their table felt a lot more like an order, and I felt obligated to follow that order.

That was how I met Harry, and the beginning of learning a few profound lessons I've carried throughout my career in the military and beyond.

Call me Harry

I wasn't in the military when I met Harry, but I knew the difference between enlisted and officers. When he told me he was a retired Air Force major, that meant something to me. He was quick to dispel with any formalities when he told me, "You're my friend, you call me Harry."

I joined the Army Reserves not long after I met Harry. I joined on December 14, 1994, and started drilling with my unit while I was still a junior in high school and about six months before I shipped out to basic training. My unit issued me one uniform and a military ID card. I was talking with Harry and the couple other retired officers (a retired Navy captain and Army colonel) right after I joined, and Harry asked to see my dog tags. I wasn't issued dog tags, and the Army colonel showed me his because he still wears them. Harry had me write down my information as they would appear on dog tags. A few days later, he brings me this little brown envelope with a number printed on it. Harry explained the significance of the number on the envelope as being a U.S. part number and not a NATO Stock Number (NSN). Harry was tasked with cleaning out an old building used during World War II, and found the dog tag blanks. He kept them for decades before having my information stamped on them.

I lost touch with Harry not long after I returned home from basic training in 1995. I went to the Carswell Club in my Class A uniform because my brass was still shiny from my last inspection and everything was perfectly where it was supposed to be.

Things were certainly different. The bar wasn't open every night of the week, and the kitchen wasn't operating as often as it did when I worked there. The atmosphere of the place was quite different, feeling as if the place were dying a slow and painful death.

When I showed up on Friday night, however, the place was certainly hopping. I couldn't wait to show off my duds to Harry and company. The bar room was packed. At one point, I went to the bar and ordered a Coke. Someone bumped into me, and I spouted off, "Hey! Watch it." As I turned around after saying that, I could see it was an Air Force Brigadier General ("one star"). I immediate snapped to attention and apologized. The general chuckled and replied, "That's okay, son. Just don't let it happen to a second lieutenant."

Harry finally showed up and burst my bubble by his seeming unimpressed demeanor. My attitude changed from glad to see him to "what the hell?" Harry told me he was proud for me, but told me service is not about ego. He really put things in perspective when he pointed out that every person in the bar (that served or was serving) had been where I had been and done what I had done. He showed me that, up to this point, my only "accomplishment" was personal in nature. The reality was I was only just beginning. Harry was deflating yet profound.

He wasn't too interested in hearing any of my "cool basic training" stories, which, up to that point, were the only stories I had. He did show some delight when I told him I was smoked a few times for wearing the old World War II dog tags he had given me, and belly-laughed when I told him about bumping into the general before he arrived. Harry told me those were the stories I would remember. Writing this almost thirty years later, I can vouch for the veracity of his prophecy... I can't remember any of the "cool basic training" stories I was trying to tell him before he cut me off.

If I recall correctly, that was the last time I ever saw Harry.

Finding Harry

I lost touch with Harry in my senior year of high school. The Carswell Club just kept spiraling into a place I didn't want to hang out and I had a lot of other things to do and other places to be. I graduated high school and shipped out to finish my Army training.

When I returned from training, I didn't stick around. I packed my stuff and I left!

In February of 2020, I was having a discussion with a co-worker on leadership. I was telling her how leaders aren't simply "born", but are developed. I shared my first leadership lesson given to me by Harry two-and-a-half decades earlier: "We are promoted from below, not from above. Our records result from the support of those we work with."

Speaking with my co-worker prompted me to try to look Harry up. After all, Google has come a LONG way since the '90s. There was the part of knowing Harry's name, but not really knowing how to spell it. I was fortunate to guess correctly on my first attempt. I didn't just find Harry on the internet, but I found a phone number for him... and I called it!

"Dr. Rumzek?"

"This is Harry."

He didn't remember me by name, but he certainly remembered slapping the kid on the back of the head in the bar! To make sure I was the one, he asked if I was the one he gave old dog tags. Yup! Harry remembered me.

We visited on the phone for a few hours, and I would call him up periodically. One thing was for sure... it wouldn't be a short conversation. We ended each call with looking forward to getting together for a visit.

Goodbye Harry

Last night, (January 6, 2024) I was talking on the phone with my father about Major Bob's Last Flight. I was telling him how I got to ride on a C-130 to what used to be Chanute Air Force Base in 1995 to pick up Marine Reservists. My father attended tech school ten years earlier when he was in the Air Force Reserves. Chanute Air Force Base had been closed down for quite a while, now. Since it's no longer a military installation, there's no controlled access, and the Google Street View cars made their rounds. My father mentioned he like walking past a specific building because it had a B-58 on static display. I told him, "Hey! I know a B-58 pilot!"

While still on the phone with my father, I went to Harry's facebook page. It was then I learned that Harry passed away back in August. I had to call my father back and correct the record. Harry wasn't a pilot, he was a navigator.

I'm saddened by Harry's passing and the fact that I never did find the opportunity to link back up with him since finding him a few years ago.

Goodbye, Harry... my friend.

Links of Harry

• Harry's Obituary Online
• Harry on the B58 Hustler Association (Most complete write-up of Harry and his accomplishments)
• Harry on Atomic Cleanup Vets