Ronald D. Ray
Ronald D. Ray was born in Hazard, Kentucky on October 30, 1942 and was commissioned through the Platoon Leaders Course in 1964, following his graduation from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. Lieutenant Ray was one of the first Marine Corps officers ashore for the restoration of peace and evacuation of American civilians during the Dominican Republic crisis in 1965. He later served as an Infantry Battalion Advisor to the South Vietnamese Marine Corps in the Republic of Vietnam during 1967 and 1968, participating in combat operations throughout South Vietnam including major joint operations during the Tet Offensive, Hue City, Operation Coronado II and Paddington. During his active military service, Colonel Ray was awarded a Bronze Star with Combat “V”, Purple Heart, Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, Vietnamese Honor Medal, and two Silver Star medals for gallantry, as described below:
July 12, 1967, during Operation Paddington, while serving as an Advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps in Phuoc Tuy Province, when he directed air strikes on a reinforced Viet Cong battalion that had surrounded the two companies that he was accompanying. While under heavy enemy fire, he continued to direct air strikes on enemy positions, contributing greatly to the success of the mission, resulting in numerous enemy killed or wounded and the confiscation of large amounts of ammunition and weapons.
July 30-31, 1967, during Operation Coronado II in the vicinity of Cai Lay, while serving as an Assistant Advisor to a Vietnamese Marine Corps battalion, he and his Vietnamese Marines were taken under heavy mortar, rocket, and automatic weapons fire immediately upon helicopter insertion in a landing zone, leading to their aggressive deployment across nearby rice paddies offering little or no protection. While exposed to enemy snipers, he exposed himself ceaselessly to insurgents in order to call in artillery fire, gunships, and air strikes throughout the day. As darkness fell, he was painfully wounded by a mortar fragment and knocked unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, he disregarded his agonizing wound and once more called for indirect fire support, eventually resulting in the rout of enemy forces.
In 1969, then Major Ray transitioned to the Marine Corps Reserve, with which he held a variety of command and staff positions, including command of combat and combat service support units in Louisville and Ft. Knox, Kentucky. In 1974, he was certified as a Staff Judge Advocate, and graduated with honors from the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island, and attended many senior level military schools, the NATO Defense College in England and the National Defense University. His last Marine Corps assignment was as the Deputy Director for Field Operations for the Division of History and Museums of the Marine Corps.
In 1984, during the Reagan Administration, Colonel Ray was appointed the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Guard/Reserve) in Washington, D.C., with responsibility for staffing and organizing a national management structure for exercising policy guidance and overall supervision of the 1,800,000 members of the nation’s National Guard & Reserve Forces. In 1985, he received the National Eagle Award from the National Guard Association for exemplary public service while in the Pentagon.
In 1988, a unique granite sundial was dedicated in Frankfort, Kentucky, as a memorial to Kentucky Vietnam veterans. Instrumental in this effort, Colonel Ray founded and served as the first Chairman of the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which privately raised more than one million dollars to build and dedicate same. Remembering his own experience, as well those of many others upon returning from Vietnam, Colonel Ray knew that readjustment was made more difficult for veterans because of the nation’s division over the war. This memorial stands today in remembrance of 1,058 Kentuckians, who gave their “last full measure of devotion” during the Vietnam war and never returned home.
In 1990, President George Herbert Walker Bush appointed Colonel Ray to the American Battle Monuments Commission which is responsible for commemorating the service of the American Armed Forces through the erection of memorials and maintaining cemeteries both here and abroad. In 1992, Colonel Ray was appointed by the President to the Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. In 2014, Colonel Ray was inducted into the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed on distinguished veterans of the commonwealth, emphasizing post-military service, including volunteerism, community leadership, advocacy, and philanthropy.
By 2010, Colonel Ray began manifesting signs of cognitive decline. He and his doctors came to understand that this decline was directly attributable to the wounds he sustained in the jungles of Vietnam. In 1967, he sustained brain injuries, both Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). His decline, fully presented 40 years later, was manifested as Lewy Body Dementia, Alzheimer’s Disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS.) His doctors identified these early injuries as the source of his decade-long debilitating, diminishing, and imprisoning neurological decline. In the course of his own treatments, Colonel Ray learned that veterans suffering with TBI were blocked from hyperbaric oxygen treatments, or HBOT, Colonel Ray and his wife, aided by Eric Koleda, led the legislative effort to permit Kentucky veterans with TBI and PTSD to have access to hyperbaric oxygen treatments already available in local hospitals. TBI and PTSD are literally wounds in the brain and although meds and psychological therapies may be helpful, oxygen is much more promising. In 2018, the “Colonel Ronald D. Ray Traumatic Brain Injury Act” was passed and signed into law by Governor Matt Bevin. This legislation finally opened oxygen chambers to veterans. As his last contribution to welfare of the nation’s veterans, Colonel Ray’s brain and spinal cord were donated to Boston University’s study on brain injuries at its Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathic (CTE) Center. Colonel Ray was laid to rest in 2020 in Frankfort, Kentucky, not far from the grave of Lt Presley N. O’Bannon, an historic Marine Corps officer who in 1805 led America’s first military excursion on foreign soil.