Lauri Harris said her husband, James Oron Harris, always wanted to build a home secluded on many acres and surrounded by nature.
“This was a dream; he always wanted a place in the woods because he always liked to hunt, but it wasn’t about just the hunting,” Lauri said of her husband who died July 1 after a long illness at their home in Valles Mines.
“It was about just being in nature. It gave him peace. And I think he really strived to have peace in his life, and I think some of that was from his childhood. And of course, a lot of it was from Vietnam, from the things that he saw and experienced there.”
James Harris was given a military procession from Festus to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
In many ways, those experiences in Vietnam shaped who Harris was and who he became.
News of Harris’s death on July 1 drew those he knew from childhood, served with in Vietnam and inspired as a 25-year faculty member and coach at the Festus R-6 School District to his dream home in Valles Mines.
One of those childhood friends, Todd Krieg, helped Harris build the dream home he cherished.
While he had known Harris since he was 4 years old, a chance encounter between Harris and Krieg, a Festus homebuilder, at a lumberyard in 2006 reunited the friends.
“I met Jim at a lumberyard drive-thru, and he told me he wanted to build a log home,” Krieg said. “I had built them, and I talked him out of building a traditional one,” said Krieg. “We were kind of shooting from the hip. I had been building homes for 14 years at that point. I was gung ho.”
In January 2008, the Harrises moved into their newly built home in the northern part of St. Francois County. With Krieg’s help, they had settled on plans for a traditional frame home, but everything else about the home resembles a log cabin, especially on the interior where a huge pine log runs along the ceiling the length of the house.
Lauri Harris poses in the house she and her husband, James, built 20 years ago in Valles Mines.
At the bottom of the stairs on the lower level of his dream home, a display case hangs on the wall as a testament to James’ military service.
Inside the case are his rank of staff sergeant, combat infantry badge (CIB), Ranger and Airborne tabs, unit patches from the 82nd Airborne Division and 4th Infantry Division and several ribbons, including two bronze stars.
The case not only testifies to the honors he earned while in Vietnam, but also his shared stories with fellow soldiers he served with in the Army in Vietnam.
Prior to his death, several of those men had reconnected with Harris to recall shared experiences and to express their love for him.
Harris, who served in Vietnam from June 1969 to June 1970, was an Airborne Ranger and part of a recon unit that was dubbed Fox Force. The small unit of around 25 men scouted for the North Vietnamese Army in the Central Highlands, not far from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Members of Fox Force were easily identified by the red scarves given to them by the South Vietnamese for valor in the field.
Kenny McLacklan, 78, lives in Central Florida and was at the services for Harris.
“Jimmy was just a cool guy. He’d do anything for you,” McLacklan said. “He was like a mother hen to our unit. Well, maybe he was more like a rooster. He was just a great guy. I went to basic training, advanced training and then straight to Vietnam. He came to the unit as a Ranger, and the rest of us may have had one day reading a map. That’s a big part of Ranger school.”
McLacklan said many members of Fox Force came in Vietnam together.
The small unit’s main objective was to move through the jungle unnoticed; cover and concealment were paramount to a mission’s success.
Missions could be as long as two weeks, he said, and nights were spent spread out in a defensive posture, oftentimes not being able to see the Fox Force member beside you.
“A lot of the jungle that we went through, nobody had gone through before,” McLacklan said. “If we were going to go to a village, we didn’t want to take the trail. We’d come in another direction. A typical example is one day we had to go off the main trail because it crossed a creek. It was kind of narrow. The little bridge was made of bamboo, and soon as that first guy crossed that bridge, we ran into a (NVA) guard.
“In Vietnam, we might control the countryside during the day, but the Vietnamese people controlled the night. The (South Vietnamese villagers) were really in a hard place, of course, trying to keep alive.”
Kenny McLacklan holds a photo of Harris and himself when they were in Vietnam.
John Hedley, another member of Fox Force, recalled meeting Harris for the first time.
In Vietnam, Harris, McLacklan and Hedley and the rest of Fox Force were all part of Charlie Co., First Battalion, 14th infantry, Fourth ID.
“Jimmy was a big Mississippi farm boy,” said Hedley, who is now 81 and lives 20 miles north of Charlotte, N.C. “He looked like he was Mr. Atlas. He looked like a biker. During chow, he comes striding up right to the front of the line at the mess tent. Nobody wanted to mess with him. He sat down to eat, and everyone got away from him so he could eat alone. Recon had a reputation as being a group of tough guys who always mixed it up with the bad guys. We hit it off immediately. For some reason, we just clicked.”
Hedley said sometimes his unit was so far away from another, they didn’t have any communications.
“Most people don’t realize the intensity of the combat over there. We were totally dependent on each other for our survival,” Hedley said. “Most of us joined this outfit at the same time. It was a remarkable unit. With the exception of Jimmy, none of them had received any special training at all. Everyone was aware how our survival depended on how quietly we moved.”
Your senses heighten when you’re in that environment, Hedley said.
“The hairs raised on the back of your neck if you sensed danger,” he said. “Because we were so small, I tried not to engage. A lot of times, I didn’t have a choice. We got into firefights every time we were out.
“Jimmy was invaluable to me. He was very comfortable in the environment we were in. I never had to tell Jimmy what to do. He’s one of the best soldiers I ever served with.”
Hedley returned home from Vietnam in 1970 and didn’t see Harris again until 2000.
“I tried and tried finding him without any luck,” Hedley said. “This was before the internet. One day in Tokyo, I got a letter from Jimmy. I called him from there, and it was an instant reconnection.”
Hedley said when he flew to St. Louis to see Harris for the first time since they’d left Vietnam, he didn’t know if they’d recognize each other. That wasn’t the case.
“We hugged and cried,” Hedley said. “The emotional connection after all of those years was phenomenal. Jimmy and I were all up all night talking. We called another guy from Fox Force and spent an hour on the phone with him. We had the first Fox Force reunion in New Mexico in 2000.”
Following his service in the military, Harris graduated from Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss. He later earned two master’s degrees at St. Louis University.
Harris taught physical education at Festus Elementary for more than 25 years, and that’s where he met Lauri, with whom he would spend the rest of his life.
“I didn’t really know him. But I knew who he was,” Lauri said. “And I knew that everybody loved him, but I didn’t really know him personally.”
The two worked together for several years before Jimmy asked Lauri to go see a movie. It was her birthday.
“I thought, this isn’t going to amount to anything,” she said. “This guy’s too awesome. Why would he want to be with me? I’m just this simple, single mom.”
Lauri said she doesn’t even recall what the movie was.
“I knew he was in the military, but I didn’t really know much past that. I just knew him as Coach Harris, and he was an amazing person, and everybody felt that way about him.”
One of those who held Harris in high regards was Steve Wolk, who first encountered Harris while in high school.
Harris was teaching a taxidermy class at Jefferson College, and Wolk signed up for the class. Lessons learned in that classroom led to Wolk becoming president of the National Taxidermists Association for three years.
“I had the passion for it. He got me started,” said Wolk, who was a firefighter and paramedic for 20 years.
“He (Harris) taught me how to hunt the right way,” said Wolk, now 60 and owner of Wild Arrow Archery Pro Shop in Festus. “The first one I ever shot; he called in. Since then, I’ve killed and called in many turkeys for other people.”
When Wolk’s youngest daughter, Tora Outman, was thinking about joining the Missouri National Guard, she sought Harris’s counsel.
“Coach talked to her and let her know what she was getting into,” Wolk said. “He took the time to point her in the right direction.
“One thing that really stands out was he was one of the toughest guys I’ve ever known, and an absolute war hero. He’d tell me he was proud of me and that he loved me,” Wolk said. “When we die, we all leave behind our material possessions, but I truly feel like he made people better.
“The last time we talked, we laughed about old times, turkey hunting. I was blessed to have that moment with him. We told each other, ‘I love you.’”
As Harris’ body was weakening due to years of congestive heart failure, efforts to reconnect with friends and family became increasingly important to him.
Lauri said she always knew how special her husband was to the people who were in his orbit, but in the weeks and days leading up to July 1, it really sank in.
“The house was like a revolving door of people coming and going constantly,” she said. “People who live around here were coming by every day just because they wanted to be with him for a little while.”
A couple weeks before Harris died, Hedley paid him a visit. He had to see his comrade one more time.
“He brightened up when I walked in, and we had a wonderful couple of days and drank a little bourbon to toast the guys who had gone before,” Hedley said. “Jimmy and I had a very special relationship.”
Hedley said he has given his share of eulogies for the members of Fox Force who’ve died.
“I haven’t cried this much in my life since Jimmy left,” Hedley said. “It was so hard leaving his house knowing I’d never see him alive again. It’s going to be a tough time. But it’s a celebration of life and not an observance for death.”