'Here's to Harry!'

After 27 years on American Legion Post 24’s Honor Guard, Harry Cook is hanging up his uniform. His fellow honor guard members honored him with a retirement dinner at Cattleman’s in Georgetown on Feb. 21.

“I don’t want to even guess how many funerals and parades” he’s participated in, said Honor Guard Commander Mark Webb.

“When he started ... is when the large wave of World War II vets were starting to pass ... now it’s Vietnam era,” he commented.

Cook served as an RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) in Vietnam, carrying an extra ten or fifteen pounds of equipment on his back.

At the dinner, Webb presented him with a Certificate of Appreciation. He also gave him a fake Article 15 signed by his buddies and accompanied by laughter. An Article 15 is a mechanism for punishing a soldier without formally charging him or her. Cook never received an Article 15 during his service.

His fellow honor guard members then raised a glass to toast him.

“Here’s to Harry!”

Cook joined the honor guard to provide comfort for grieving families.

When a request is made for military honors for a veteran’s funeral, the honor guard attends, firing three volleys and playing “Taps.”

In 27 years, Harry Cook never missed a service, even if it meant standing in snow up to his knees.

His neighbors in Corinth have benefitted from his beneficent nature as well. JoAnne True---perhaps better known to Grant Countians as Mrs. Gordon True--said, “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Harry Cook.”

Cook was good friends with True’s husband, and he has faithfully checked in on her every day, said her daughter, Lynn True.

They once had a way of signaling one another with a clothespin on her mailbox. They shared copies of the Lexington Herald. If the clothespin was in a certain position, Cook knew to check in on her.

“I can call on him day or night,” Joann said. “It’s sort of Mayberry.”