Posted by Joe Gilbreth on June 25, 2005:

(From Nashville Tennessean) Harry J. Maihafer, Korean War veteran, banker, dies at 77 By NATALIA MIELCZAREK Staff Writer With three careers during his lifetime, Harry J. Maihafer followed the advice he gave his daughter Patti Thompson years ago. He told her to have careers, one in service, one "to make fortune" and one for enjoyment. Mr. Maihafer, a U.S. Army colonel and Korean War veteran, a bank employee and a writer of seven books, died of cancer yesterday at his home in Nashville. He was 77. "He was larger than life," said Thompson, who remembered her father as a man hungry for adventures who instilled the same hunger in his children. "He loved to travel. If he was in another country, he always tried to learn that language and converse with the locals," she said. The first career Mr. Maihafer pursed was in the military, after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1949. For the next two decades he served as an infantry officer stationed in a number of places in and outside of the United States. As a platoon leader during the Korean War, Mr. Maihafer was wounded and received the Purple Heart. He retired in 1969. In a recent letter to Mr. Maihafer, one of his West Point classmates, retired Col. Ted Swett, wrote, "With your superb combat record and your distinguished accomplishments after you retired from the Army, you could have 'written the book' on Duty, Honor, Country." In the years to follow, Mr. Maihafer worked in human resources departments in three banks, most recently at Commerce Union Bank in Nashville in 1977. He was the director of personnel. "Harry was a respected business associate, a tennis competitor and a valued friend," said Robert H. Smith, who met Mr. Maihafer in 1977 at the bank and worked with him until Mr. Maihafer retired in 1987. "I admired his skill as a writer and a storyteller and was humbled by his cheerful courage as he faced approaching death," he said. While still in the military, Mr. Maihafer received a master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in 1966. Upon retirement from the bank, Mr. Maihafer began his writing career when he was in his 60s, publishing six books on American politics and history, wars and media. The seventh hasn't been published yet. "He was either writing at his computer or reading someone else's book. He loved mysteries and historical biographies," Thompson said. John C. Merrill, a retired journalism professor at Missouri School of Journalism, wrote about The General and the Journalists, published in 1998: "Grant, Greeley, and Dana come alive on these pages that inform, intrigue, and entertain the general reader as well as those specially interested in journalism and military history." Mr. Maihafer is survived by his wife of 52 years, Jeanne Maihafer, of Nashville; three daughters, Veronica Barnes of Charlotte, N.C., and Patti Thompson and Peggy Maihafer, both of Nashville; and seven grandchildren. Visitation is 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at Marshall-Donnelly-Combs Funeral Home at 201 25th Ave. N. Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Wednesday at St. Henry's Catholic Church, 6401 Harding Road. Burial will follow at the Calvary Cemetery at 1001 Lebanon Pike.

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