Harmon Rabb - Youth & Family

Youth & Family

Harmon Rabb, Jr. was born on October 25, 1963 in La Jolla, California to naval aviator Lieutenant Harmon Rabb, Sr. USN and Patricia Reed. He is a third generation aviator. His grandfather was killed flying off the USS Hornet in 1942 during the Second World War. During the Vietnam War, his father flew F-4 Phantoms off the USS Ticonderoga, an Essex class aircraft carrier. On Christmas Eve 1969 while flying an Iron Hand mission, Harmon Rabb, Sr. was shot down over North Vietnam and was considered MIA. Harm's mother went on to happily remarry Frank Burnett, a senior VP of Chrysler Corporation.

When he was 16, Harm went to Laos to look for his father together with Colonel Francis Stryker. Years later, Harm was able to determine his father's fate. After he was shot down, Harmon Rabb, Sr. was taken to Russia, escaped from his captors, was involved with a Russian woman (producing one son), and was killed protecting her from Russian soldiers attempting to rape her in 1980. Harm met his half-brother, Sergeant Sergei Zhukov a helicopter pilot of the Russian Army (played by Jade Carter), who was accused of selling weapons to Chechen rebels. Sergei was later shot down and captured by Chechen rebels.

Nearly every Christmas Eve, Harm visits the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve to pay tribute to his father. In one episode, he met Jenny Lake (played by Catherine Bell) who was present on the USS Ticonderoga when his father was shot down. On another Christmas Eve, he invited one of his father's former squadron buddies Rear Admiral Thomas Boone to the wall. Another year, Harm was surprised by Clayton Webb bringing his half-brother Sergei to see him at the wall, after Webb exchanged two trucks of wheat for Sergei's freedom from Chechnya.