A legacy remembered: Family of new post namesake reflects on Hood

FORT HOOD, Texas — In a historic move reflecting a broader commitment to preserve America’s military heritage, Fort Hood has been renamed in honor of Col. Robert B. Hood — a decorated officer whose legacy embodies courage, integrity and service.

Mitzi Huffman, daughter of Hood, conveyed she grappled with the news delivered by Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, III Armored Corps and Fort Hood commander.

“When I got the call and was told, I thought it was a prank call, and I was kind of curt to the general,” Huffman admitted. “He said, ‘President Trump has ordered,’ and I’m going, ‘Oh my!’ So yes, I was totally in disbelief.”

The news stirred a bevy of emotions for Huffman and after some fact-checking and confirming the redesignation was indeed sanctioned and happening, she began to unpack years of memories, literally and figuratively, revisiting the impact of her youth and reflecting on the dichotomy of the man she respected as a Soldier and loved as a father.

Long before his military service, Hood was a boy growing up in Wellington, Kansas, where lessons of discipline and determination first took root. Those early days, marked by the sudden death of his father, would shape the leader he was destined to become.

Hood went on to graduate from Kansas State Agricultural College, now Kansas State University, located in Manhattan, Kansas, where he majored in horticulture and political science and excelled in ROTC.

He embarked on a military career marked by leadership, bravery and unwavering integrity, punctuated by the Distinguished Service Cross, the U.S. Army’s second-highest military decoration for extraordinary heroism.

Despite his military heroism and achievements, Huffman, the youngest of Hood’s two daughters, shared his real superpower was a devotion to duty that equaled his commitment to his family.

“I told my dad one time that the greatest gift he gave my sister and I was knowing that they loved each other,” Huffman said of her parents. “They were really devoted to each other.”

Their union, which spanned nearly three decades and endured World War I, the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II and the Vietnam War, began when he met Hazel McMinn at the National Naval Medical Center, now known as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland.

Hood lived life in two uniforms — one stitched in duty, the other in family — and his wife ensured a healthy separation between the two, Huffman recalled.

“My mother would reflect that Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur’s wife always referred to him as the ‘general in conversation,’ and my mother, laughingly, would say that she told my dad when they were married that when he walked through the door of their home, his rank disappeared. He took his little eagles off when he walked into the house,” Huffman said.

Rank aside, her father ruled the household with an unyielding discipline. He cultivated habits through example, routine and expectation — habits Huffman said are still etched into her life today.

“He was a very tough task master, but he was fair. He definitely could make you toe the line,” Huffman said. “I thought every child had Saturday morning inspections where he would come into our room and make sure our coat hangers were all facing the same way, our shoes were lined up, we always had our clothes laid out for the next day and that we always made our beds in hospital corners. Still today, the first thing I do is make my bed every morning.”

Some of her most cherished memories are when the rigidity of rank gave way to gentler rhythms Huffman shared.

“I remember when I was about 7 or 8, he would read to me at night, and one of his favorite things to read was William Cullen Bryant’s ‘Thanatopsis,’” she said. “I remember he would read a page, then he would turn to a page, and he would shut his eyes, and he would, from memory, repeat several stanzas of that poem. I just recently read that poem again, and it was very poignant to his life.”

She laughed as she recalled one of the rare instances, she and her sister outsmarted their father after they were forbidden to ride horses.

They tied the horse to a wagon and drove the horse around the pasture — knowing they could get in trouble but armed with a ready response.

“We said in unison, ‘Dad, we’re not riding the horse, we’re driving the horse,’” Huffman recited. “We laughed about that for years.”

Now a retired Air Force captain, wife, mother and grandmother, Huffman has never forgotten the foundation her father established all those years ago.

“So much of my dad’s life was selfless service,” she expressed. “I felt like it was my duty, because my dad always had that sense of duty.”

As for what he would think of the name change, Huffman didn’t mince words.

“I tell you true, my dad would say the name on that gate does not ever define what that fort’s legacy is,” she said. “That fort is the backbone of the Army, and the Army code is instilled in every Soldier that passes through that gate.

“I don’t think the name will be the legacy,” Huffman concluded. “I think the code is what will stand. It is the backbone of the Army. That is what is shaping the legacy, and it is unchanging.”