Ronald D. Ray

Colonel Ronald D. Ray passed away on his farm in Crestwood, Kentucky on July 6, 2020, from renal failure.

In 2009 Colonel Ray joined with 96 Kentucky State Senators and 35 State Representatives, The Family Trust Foundation of Kentucky and The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky in two cases brought against Kentucky's Homeland Security Law by the American Atheists, Inc. and the ACLU seeking to remove the name of "Almighty God" from Kentucky's Homeland Security Law.

Colonel Ray resigned his active commission in 1969 and joined the Marine Corps Reserve, where 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. He served as deputy director for field operations for the Division of History and Museums of the Marine Corps. Colonel Ray retired from the Marine Corps Reserve on June 30, 1994, and he is currently working on a history of the Vietnam War.

In 1993 Colonel Ray published a piece in the conservative Indiana Policy Review in which he wrote that "homosexuals are not as a group able bodied," and went on to describe "'gay" sexual practices" in detail. The article came to light during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign as the journal was published at the time of the article by eventual Vice President Mike Pence.

In 1990, President Bush appointed Colonel Ray to the American Battle Monuments Commission, which is responsible for commemorating the services of American Armed Forces through the erection of memorials and maintaining cemeteries. In 1992, Colonel Ray was appointed by the President to the Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. Colonel Ray founded and served as the Chairman of the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which privately raised more than one million dollars to build and dedicate a unique granite sundial as a memorial to Vietnam veterans in Frankfort, Kentucky.

In 1984, Colonel Ray was appointed the first Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Guard/Reserve) in Washington, D.C., which Pentagon appointment included responsibility for staffing and organizing a national management structure for exercising policy guidance and overall supervision of the 1,800,000 members of this 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.

Colonel Ray was the lead counsel in the three cases brought in 2000 by the ACLU against Kentucky's Pulaski and McCreary County Judges and Harlan County Schools seeking to suppress or censor the public posting of official and historical American political documents including: an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence; the Preamble to the Kentucky Constitution; America's national motto "In God We Trust;" a copy of the February 2, 1983, Congressional Record, which contains the text of the Ten Commandments; a proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln; a proclamation by President Ronald Reagan; and the Mayflower Compact.

For the last few years of his life, Ray suffered the side effects of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which were likely caused by wounds he sustained in the Vietnam War in 1967.

In 1964, Colonel Ray was accepted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, serving as a corps leader and one of the first peace officers ashore for the evacuation of civilians during the Dominican Republic Crisis in 1967. Corps Leader Ray later served as an infantry battalion advisor to the Vietnamese Marine Corps in the Republic of Vietnam during 1967 and 68, participating in combat operations throughout South Vietnam including major joint operations during the TET Offensive, Hue City, Coronado II and Paddington. During his active military service, Colonel Ray was awarded many decorations, including two Silver Stars for gallantry, a Bronze Star Medal with Combat "V", the Purple Heart, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry and the Vietnamese Honor Medal.

Colonel Ray was born in Hazard, Kentucky on October 30, 1942. He received his B.A. from Centre College of Kentucky in 1964, and his Juris Doctor, Magna Cum Laude, in 1971 from the University of Louisville School of Law, where he was Salutatorian in his class. Colonel Ray was a Partner with Greenebaum, Doll & McDonald for 15 years, and until 1986 headed the Labor and Employee Relations section of the firm. Colonel Ray was adjunct professor of law at the University of Louisville School of Law for many years.