‘Retired, but not finished’

Harvey Knowles reached into his pocket and retrieved his simple flip phone. After punching in a number, he activated the speaker phone and waited. When someone answered, Knowles didn’t say anything. Instead, he began playing Happy Birthday on his harmonica.
As he approaches his 95th birthday on Aug. 3, it is impossible to guess just how many times he has played the song for everyone from family and friends to friends of friends on their birthdays. It’s just one of many ways he stays active in serving the community.

Knowles grew up in Wallace and did not have an easy childhood. His father was very hard on him, especially after drinking. When his older brother turned 18, he signed up for the military. That meant he would be on his own with his dad at 15 years old. His mother had moved to Richlands to live with Harvey’s half-brother.
During those days, a recruiter would come to Wallace once a week. Knowles tried to sign up like his brother did, only to be told he was not old enough. Not deterred by the rejection, he went on a mission.

“I traveled all the way to the courthouse in Kenansville and went to the clerk of court’s office,” Knowles said. “I told them the doctor in Wallace had delivered a bunch of babies over the weekend and asked me to come get him some blank birth certificates.”
In those simpler days, there was no reason to doubt the word of a young boy who claimed to be running an errand for a doctor.
With blank certificates in hand, he snuck into school to access a typewriter and created a new birth certificate for himself, messing up a few before creating one saying he was 17 years old, the minimum age in those days to sign up. There was just one problem. There was a section on the form for a notary signature. When Knowles found out what that was and that the father of a friend was a notary, he went to visit. He distracted his friend so he could use his dad’s stamp on his certificate. He also forged his mother’s name on the birth certificate.

The next time a recruiter came to Wallace, Knowles told Duplin Journal he was there with his new birth certificate in hand and the next day, he was on a bus to Fort Bragg for basic training. After basic training and paratrooper school, he found himself being deployed on a ship to Japan. He was, in reality, still 15 years old.

Knowles shared that shortly before he turned 17, while serving in Japan, an officer began questioning him about his age and discovered the story about his enlistment at 15. The questioning began after Harvey’s mother was speaking to someone in Wallace and said she had not heard from Harvey in a while. That led to a search for Harvey and word eventually made its way to Japan. The Army sent him home saying his enlistment had been fraudulent. Knowles explained that because of his reputation, he was given an honorable discharge and sent back to North Carolina. He was only home for a few weeks before he officially turned 17 and he simply re-enlisted. This time, he eventually became a member of Special Forces.

With tensions rising in Vietnam, Knowles was trained to speak Vietnamese and Laotian. He was deployed to Southeast Asia. Once he was there, he embarked on an undercover mission. Knowles told Duplin Journal that he was issued a new I.D., with a new name, along with civilian clothes and he was sent into Laos, pretending to be a businessman. It was while in Laos that he was shot. He was awarded the Purple Heart.

Retiring from the Army as a major, Knowles said he had no intention of remaining inactive. He went to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an investigator, primarily going undercover to find those engaged in food stamp fraud.
During one investigation, Knowles told Duplin Journal that he wanted to be deliberately arrested by a small police force in a town west of Wilmington so he could have the chance to talk with a jail inmate he knew had inside information about a big-time fraudster. To maintain his cover, he could not reveal his true identity to local law enforcement.

“I found an officer sitting in his car on the edge of the road,” Knowles said. “I sped past him and he did nothing. I turned around and drove even faster and he still ignored me. The third time by him, I slowed down and made a gesture to him most people find objectionable. That time, he arrested me.”
He was taken to the county jail and placed in the same cell with the guy he wanted to talk to. Mission accomplished. That work eventually led to the arrest of the man they wanted for food stamp fraud.

Knowles retired with the rank of major and returned to Wallace, where he still serves people through his volunteer efforts with the WoodmenLife chapter he is president of and with the Masons.
He and his wife Candace can be found on independent missions as well, like serving pizza to local police officers during active threat training and helping at various church events.
While Knowles will soon turn 95, those who know him see no sign of him slowing down. As his business cards say, identifying him as “Happy Harve,” the line below that reads, “Retired, but not finished.”