DETECTIVE SERGEANT HAROLD J. HISKES Jr.

ID 2458

SDPD 07/10/1978 - 10/12/2001

06/03/1949 - 05/15/2025

Husband of Sergeant Anne Marie Hiskes

THE THIN BLUE LINE

Harold John Hiskes Jr., age 75, Vietnam War Veteran and retired San Diego Police Sergeant, died peacefully on May 14, 2025, surrounded by love.

He is survived by his loving wife Anne-Marie, nee Courser; Loving father to Amy (Jamie) Snyder, Pamela (Jason) Lees, and Debra (Jason) Guisinger and survived by their mother, Beverly (Boss). Loving father to Harold (“Joe”); stepfather to Christian and John-Paul Tyler. Cherished grandfather to Melody (Joseph) Banegas, Briana (Andrew) Funk, Zachary, Kat, Jeremiah, Julia, Emily, Abigail, Colin, Jacob, Jasmim, Kaya and Bella. Loving Great Grandfather to Adrielle, Jonah and Peyton. Dear brother of the late Evalyn (Don) Verhey, Carol (Edwin) DeJong, John (Elaine), Rich (Anne), Dave (Rose), Mark (Cindy) and Ken (Jackie). Fond brother-in-law to many. Dear uncle of many nieces and nephews.

It’s hard for us to think about Harold Hiskes’s death without the words of Emily Dickinson’s poem coming to mind: “We know in the retreating how great a one was among us.” Harold John Hiskes was, truly, a great one.

However, his deep humility, self-deprecating humor, and gentle way with everyone, 

including the least of these among us (human or animal), always kept him from standing out unnecessarily. But if you were poor, he was there with a helping hand. If you needed a tour of San Diego, he’d drive you anywhere you wished. If you were hurting in some way, he’d drop everything to offer whatever he could to heal you. If you were in danger, Harold Hiskes would take any risk—something he proved over and over again throughout his career as a Navy corpsman and police officer—to bring you to safety. He donated his own bone marrow to save a perfect stranger. Already I can hear him say, as he did so often to us who loved him, “Stop, you’re making me blush.”

He was known as “Hank” by his family and friends in San Diego and “Harry” by his seven siblings who grew up with him in Chicago. Like his father Harold, Harold Jr. was a storyteller and a lifelong historian. He loved the family weekend drives around the city where his father would show him and his siblings the famous buildings, the stockyards, the famous disasters and incidents, the many museums, stadiums, and neighborhoods. Harry’s favorite was The Museum of Science and Industry, where the World War II fighter planes hanging overhead in the main hall likely began his fascination with the military—as did the fact that his father and several of his uncles were involved in WWII, of whom he was extremely proud.

He also had a lifelong pride for his family: his parents Harold and Everdean, his two older sisters and five younger brothers, his wife, children, and grandchildren, all of whom loved him dearly. Spending time with any of them always brought him the greatest joy.

As a teenager, he took up guitar playing, subjecting all to his early, very-rough renditions of the songs of his favorite group, The Four Seasons. Later in life, in San Diego, he would play guitar, bass, banjo, violin, cello—any instrument with strings—as he was incredibly musically gifted. He joined a local bluegrass band, “Emma’s Gutbucket,” and loved to get together with the group weekly. He also joined “The Grateful Hooligans” and “The Baja Blues Boys,” playing at venues locally for less than the cost of the gasoline it took to get there. He played in church, and he strummed regularly at home. His wife, Anne-Marie, has the voice of an angel, and she often sang along with him.

As a kid, he and his brothers often played basketball on the driveway or touch football in the side yard (Let’s just say he had a rather “singular” jump shot, and he had the hands of a great receiver). His first car was a 1955 Chevy, which he had painted and dubbed “the Blue Bomb,” and generously offered the keys to those who could drive in the family. His youngest brothers remember the first weekend he came home from the Navy in 1971: he wanted nothing more than to take them to Santa Fe Speedway for the races.

Much later in his life, he joined his brothers for an annual fishing trip to Cape Cod, which brother Rich would organize. Said Rich, “I would often say to him, “Sometimes you just need to talk to your big brother.” Sadly, he often seemed surprised to hear that. A humble man. His best fishing line was, “I’m from the West Coast; I’m still learning how to cast east.” To the end, he was a brother to love and admire—and laugh with.

In 1967 he graduated from Chicago Christian High School and, rather than wait to be drafted, he enlisted in the Navy, knowing well the likelihood of spending time in Vietnam. He waited to visit the recruiting office until his parents were gone for a weekend. After all, he knew they would object—especially his mother, who had spent 3 years alone with their new daughter while her husband served overseas in the Army during WWII; she had also lost one older brother, a pilot, whose plane was shot down over Germany, on Christmas Day, 1944, and his remains never found. (Harry researched and wrote the book “One Soldier’s Story” about him); she also had a younger brother who had returned shell-shocked from Normandy. She knew what war was. Still, Harry enlisted because his sense of duty ran deep: he never thought any task, job, or expectation was beneath him.

He went to boot camp at Camp Pendleton, in San Diego, California, where he received intensive training as a Navy Corpsman. Harry was a gifted and prolific writer, and his book “Christmas 1970” tells in vivid detail what life was like for a 21-year-old medic assigned to a Marine platoon in a war zone. With his usual humility and understatement, he writes,“I think going to war as a medic or corpsman is a little tougher than most military duties. I think everyone is concerned about not panicking, being a coward, or freezing during their first taste of combat. A corpsman also has to be concerned about the awesome responsibility of trying to save lives, not ‘freaking out’ at the horrible sights that might befall him and being able to remember what seemed like an incredible amount of medical information.”

Needless to say, according to his comrades and friends, Harry never froze or freaked out. He was their hero, and despite the constant danger, he managed to save many lives during war. Rather than run from danger, to save his comrades, he ran toward it. He also makes clear in his book his love for the Vietnamese on both sides of the war. That was just who Harry was.

At one point in his book, he talks about a young Vietnamese village boy he couldn’t forget. The boy had been running to catch the Marine garbage truck heading toward the dump. Hungry as he and his family were, he had tried to jump onto the truck to see what he could scavenge but instead had fallen and broken his neck. In minutes, Medic Harry, in the back of a jeep, held his head gently and firmly in his hands as they tried to get him to the battalion aid station for help. Along the bumpy path, Harry knew that the boy had died in his hands, because of the “death rattle,” as he wrote, that he would become all too familiar with. The boy was dead when the jeep arrived at the aid station, and his parents grieved for him, “just like they would here in the United States.” Brave and courageous as he was, Harry’s heart was soft, always soft.

Returning from Vietnam, Harry moved back home to Chicago, where he planned to go to pharmacy school. After realizing that the career of a pharmacist might bore him, he worked for a while with the public works department of Palos Heights, a suburb of Chicago. Soon after he applied to become a police officer and, after attending the Chicago Police Academy, which was in the same building where the TV show “Hill Street Blues” was filmed, he began his police career with the Palos Heights force in 1974. Harry wrote his book “Blue Collar Cop” to share stories about his fulfilling police career.

In 1978 he began a long career with the San Diego police department. It seemed the challenge of serving and protecting a big city was more to Hank’s liking. He wasn’t disappointed. In fact, while he was still in training for the San Diego force, tragedy struck: a huge airliner—the Pacific Southwest Airlines, Flight 182—ran into a Cessna, and crashed in a residential area of the city, devastating a whole block of homes. The Cessna also crashed into a populated area. Hank, along with the other trainees, helped secure the area and clear the scenes of bodies and, not surprisingly, had to deal with the traumatic aftereffects. About the aftermath, he wrote,“The fact is that the job requires [cops] to maintain their composure and professionalism during an incident. But acting like something doesn’t bother you doesn’t really make it go away. It seems to me that you have to suffer through things in your thoughts and dreams, but they eventually go away with the passage of time.”

Hank had frequent nightmares following the tragedy and wasn’t willing to fly on an airplane for a decade.

Still, Hank loved his job as a San Diego Police Sergeant. When opportunities came to move up the ranks, Hank would decline them. He always wanted to be in the field, not in some office. On July 18, 1984, Hank was involved in another tragedy that would make national headlines: The McDonald’s Massacre on San Ysidro Boulevard, where a young man went into a McDonald’s and opened fire, killing 21 and wounding 19. Although he was off duty, as a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team leader Hank was called in immediately. Since the traffic surrounding the scene was so bad, Hank had to run the last two blocks with all his equipment. After the officers on scene believed that the shooter was dead, two SWAT teams charged McDonalds from two sides. Hank led one of them and was the first to enter the building. Needless to say, what he saw was devastating. In his book, he described the scene as “surreal….a very strange and terrible sight, to say the least.” Hank saw a lot of tragedy in his life, but he always wrote about it in a way that would bring dignity to those involved. He never sensationalized such scenes.

In 1986, Hank volunteered for the first-ever Border Crime Prevention Unit, which the San Diego Police Department, in cooperation with the United States Border Patrol, formed to protect the innocent immigrants from Mexico who were crossing through the desert to the United States. Hank, of course, was a team leader. His job was to lead 10 officers each night to patrol the dangerous terrain of San Ysidro—dubbed “One Square Mile of Hell”—where bandits preyed upon the immigrants—robbing, killing, and raping them. In a newspaper article, titled “Protecting the Aliens,” a reporter writes: No wonder, then, Hank was drawn to the work. And no wonder, either, that he made such a dangerous task also a very humanitarian one. One of his fellow officers, Anne-Marie Tyler, whom he later married, had the idea of giving the immigrant children living in that desolate place, a joyful Christmas. So, each year that Anne-Marie and Hank were on the team together, on Christmas morning they and a few others would drive a police cruiser laden with gifts and Christmas cookies to the needy families living in that dangerous area. Not surprisingly, it was a huge hit with the kids and their families, and it was later reported and praised in the local press.

There was much more to report, of course, much of which is covered in Hank’s book about it. As a police sergeant, Hank was a prolific writer—not only of nightly reports, but also of detailed guidelines for his team, one of which was called “Squad Rules.” As usual, Hank’s humor and heartfelt voice came through clearly. One rule stated, “You can’t have your birthday off. I know your reason. It’s your birthday. That excuse didn’t work with your third-grade teacher, and it won’t work with me. I’m just as tough as she was.” Another said, “With rapes, child abuses, and similar crimes, that require immediate attention, handle the victims the way you’d want your mother, sisters, brothers, or kids to be treated.” Hank’s deep sense of humanity led him to treat each person he encountered with respect.

As Hank’s health declined, he finally retired from the Police force on September 7, 2001. Married to a fellow police officer, he couldn’t resist writing in his book about her, and what a brave and accomplished police Sergeant she was. Anne-Marie then retired from SDPD in 2008. Besides caring for their children and grandchildren, Hank and Anne-Marie were active in their church and various volunteer work. He also served as a docent on the Navy's docked ship, The USS Midway. This task allowed him to research war history and bring it to life for the millions of visitors to Midway each year. Hank also collected model trains and enjoyed constructing elaborate layouts for family and friends. The annual Christmas tree setup wasn’t complete, without a train set running around it. The grandchildren loved it!

In his last years, as Hank’s health declined even further and COVID shut down the country, Hank managed one last big writing project. His eldest sister Evie had died in 2020, and the remaining seven siblings were convinced they needed to write a book about her and their family. They set up a Google.doc that would allow all seven siblings—from California to Connecticut to Michigan to Chicago and to Florida—to contribute to that wonderful story. One year and almost 300 hundred pages later, “Growing Up Hiskes” was published, with a beautiful cover designed and illustrated by his nephew, Ken DeJong. His sister Carol wrote a moving elegy to sister Evie, and though all their voices are present throughout the writing, it is Harry’s unbelievably detailed, eloquent and often humorous contributions, that they are all so grateful for today.

Hank had three daughters with his first wife, one son with Anne-Marie, and two stepsons. His youngest daughter recalled once hearing that the officers on the police force teased him (lovingly, I’m sure) when he had a third daughter. But it didn’t matter. His heart was soft, so soft; Having daughters suited him. Yet, he could be tough when needed too. He was his kids’ protector and defender, and fatherhood caused him plenty of worry! The first time his oldest daughter (a teenager at the time) drove to the house on Christmas morning, she took a wrong turn, and the girls were lost. An hour later when they finally showed up, he had the police scanner on – listening for accident reports – and he was pacing. Relief immediately came over this face.

He was the first to show up if his children were in a troubled situation – always just a phone call away, no matter the distance. No questions asked. He was just there if they needed him.

His daughter recalls a funny story, coming home with a date one night in high school. Hank was working the third watch and had stopped by the house for a cup of coffee, parking the police car in the driveway, conveniently at the time she was due home by curfew. It wasn’t a threat – just a nonchalant implication--no one should think twice about messing with his girls.

Twelve years after his youngest daughter, his son Joe was born. Joe was named “Harold Joseph” – “Harold” after both his father and grandfather. But he was called this only when Grandpa Hiskes visited each winter from Chicago. This was confusing to him as a toddler, not able to understand why his name would suddenly change! Eventually he affectionately became just “Joe.” Hank was so proud of his son and was thrilled to be around to see Jacqueline come into Joe’s life too. Joe and Jacqueline lovingly assisted Anne-Marie with caring for Hank at home when his disease first started taking hold.

And as stepfather, he had to be a strong man. His stepsons lived in the home, so he had to become the disciplinarian – not a favored role for him. Yet he was a role model and a leader; He modeled his faith, forgiveness and loved unconditionally.

Hank has 13 beautiful and talented grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren. His grandchildren were his greatest joy. He would travel to meet each one when they were first born. Photos of him with a grandbaby in his arms, would always show his face lit up. He would talk to them in his funny “Donald Duck” voice, and he could always make them smile. He watched them grow and would cheer them on. He was always so proud of his grandchildren -- every unique one. His heart swelled with pride when he spoke of them.

Harold John Hiskes was a truly great man—humble, courageous, kind, funny, loving, and a man who dearly loved and respected his family. In his honor two years ago, when Parkinson’s Disease with Lewy body dementia was slowly taking him away from us, his family had a plaque made and placed at the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial in San Diego, CA. His memory will not only live on there, but also in the hearts of all his family members and friends.

His wife, Anne-Marie says, “I felt like the luckiest woman in the world having been married to Hank for 37 years. He treated me better than any human being has ever treated me. He also kept me laughing and helped me through all the tough times. I always told him, “You are my hero!”

We all love you, Hank, and will dearly miss you.

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