A Northern Thunder (43 page)

He served, for example, as an intern at the 1964 Democratic National Convention held that year in Atlantic City, NJ, where he heard Bobby Kennedy emotionally eulogize his brother, President John F. Kennedy, gunned down by an assassin the year before. He also became a high school track star, which eventually led to his participation in a national meet at Madison Square Garden in New York. His running ability led to an athletic scholarship at American University in Washington, D.C..

In the early 1970’s, Harp hiked and took trains all across Europe, from Lisbon, Spain, to Bodo, Norway, the true end of the railroad line in Northern Europe. After college and his European travels, he did a tour on active duty in the Marine Corps, where he was leader of a small group of arctic-trained instructors. He himself was trained at a number of bases, including Fort Greeley, Alaska, where he lived in temperatures at fifty degrees below zero, where car dashboards broke off like dried cake icing, and where packs of wolves roamed the streets at night.

After his stint on active duty, Harp returned to the South to attend law school at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. After graduating from law school and passing the bar, he served as a district attorney, where he prosecuted felonies. In one murder trial, he obtained a favorable verdict after a mere twelve minutes of jury deliberations. The victim’s mother cried in his arms in appreciation.

Harp left the criminal prosecution field to become a civil trial attorney, and has since participated in cases in more than eight states, from Texas to Florida. His practice has largely involved the representation of injured railroad men and women.

During his legal career, Harp has also written for several professional publications. One article, co-written with a Harvard physician, was described by the medical journal’s editor as one of the decade’s leading articles on catastrophic spinal cord injury care.

While building a successful career in law, he was also succeeding in another career—the United States Marine Corps Reserves. During thirty years spent in the Reserves, Harp rose to the rank of colonel and served in the Persian Gulf, Central America, Europe, South Korea, and the Pentagon. He was mobilized for “Operation Enduring Freedom”—the U.S. invasion of Iraq—where he was the officer in charge of the Marines’ Crisis Action Team in the Pacific. On his departure, the men and women of his team presented him with a plaque of appreciation.

He lives with his wife in Columbus, Georgia. They have four children.