Harry F. Wilson Jr.

Harry F. Wilson Jr.

Air Force colonel

Harry F. Wilson Jr., 70, who retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1993 and became an elementary school teacher, died Jan. 17 of pancreatic cancer at his home in Potomac Falls.

He had been a Northern Virginia resident since 1986.

During his 30-year Air Force career, Col. Wilson largely focused on arms control policy.

He was a negotiator assigned to Geneva from 1979 to 1981 and then served as an international affairs assistant. He commanded a cruise missile base in Belgium later in the 1980s.

Col. Wilson worked at the Pentagon as an arms control and intelligence adviser before his retirement in 1993.

During the Vietnam War, he was a navigator on an air tanker.

His decorations included the Legion of Merit.

After his Air Force career, Col. Wilson received an education degree from Marymount University in Arlington. He taught at Willow Springs Elementary School in Fairfax County until he retired in 2001.

Harry Follmer Wilson was born in Bridgeport, Conn. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs in 1963 and received a master's degree in international relations from Georgetown University in 1968.

Col. Wilson was a member of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Dunn Loring, where he established a counseling ministry.

He attended the wedding of his youngest daughter two days before he died.

Survivors include his wife of 46 years, Mary Roberts Wilson of Potomac Falls; four daughters, Sarah Powell of Kansas City, Kan., Cassandra Rosado of Burke, Jennifer O'Raghallaigh of Dublin and Mary Hinderer of Chicago; and six grandchildren.

- Tim Smith