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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

On Memorial Day, Thoughts Of A Friend

May 25, 2020 by Doug Ramsey

Every Memorial Day, I think of someone who became a friend under demanding circumstances. Some years, I share that thought with Rifftides readers.

MEMORY OF A FRIEND
First posted May 30, 2011

There is someone I think of every Memorial Day, and many other days. Cornelius Ram and I were among a collection of young men who accepted the United States Marine Corps’ bet that we weren’t tough or smart enough to wrestle commissions from it. It quickly became apparent to everyone, including the drill instructors charged with pounding us into the shape of Marines, that Corky Ram would have no problem. He was a standout in the grueling weeks of officer candidate competition and then in the months of physical and mental rigor designed to make us worthy of those little gold bars on the collars of our fatigues. After high school in Jersey City, New Jersey, he served a hitch as a Navy enlisted man, and then got a college degree before he chose the Corps. He was two or three years older than most of us, and a natural leader. He could tell when the pressure was about to cave a green lieutenant exhausted from a 20-mile forced march with full field pack or demoralized after a classroom test he was sure he had flunked. Corky knew how to use encouragement or cajolery to restore flagging determination. He helped a lot of us make it through. The picture on the right is how I remember him from that period.

Unlike most of us who served our few years and got out, Corky made the Marine Corps his career. He served two tours in Viet Nam. Here is the official 5th Marines’ Command Chronology of what happened to him and another officer on his second tour in January of 1971, as the war was slogging to its demoralizing conclusion:

“On 10 January Major Ram (2/5 XO) and Captain Ford (E Co., CO), while attempting to aid two wounded Marines, were killed by a 60mm surprise firing device.”

There’s a bit more to the story. Major Ram, Executive Officer of 2/5 Marines, and Captain Ford (of Glen Rock, NJ), Commanding Officer of Echo Company, were overhead in a command helicopter when they spotted the wounded Marines in the open and in the path of oncoming enemy troops. The helicopter pilot, convinced that the open area was mined, refused to land in the vicinity of the wounded Marines and instead put down at a distance. Major Ram and Captain Ford exited the helicopter and began to cross the open area toward the wounded men. The pilot was right – the area was mined, and both Major Ram and Captain Ford died as a result. At least one of the two wounded Marines survived; he visited the Ram family several years later and described the circumstances.

Corky Ram was one of 13,085 Marines who died in hostile action in Viet Nam. I knew others, but he was the one I knew best. More than once, I have stood gazing at his name on the wall at the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, DC. When Memorial Day comes around, he symbolizes for me the American service men and women who have died in the nation’s wars. What we and all of the free world owe them is beyond calculation.

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Comments

  1. Dave Bentley says

    May 26, 2020 at 2:44 am

    Humbled by your comments Doug. Many of us tend to forget just how much we owe to people like Major Ram. You don’t. My hat’s off.

  2. Patrick Hussey says

    May 26, 2020 at 6:30 am

    Thank you, Doug, for sharing this.

  3. F. Norman Vickers says

    May 26, 2020 at 7:07 am

    Very appropriate and touching for a Memorial Day. Thanks to all who have made ultimate sacrifice for our beloved country. Thanks for your post! Keep them coming.

  4. Michael Ram says

    May 26, 2020 at 9:13 am

    Thank you, Doug — For the remembering the Major. God bless all our heroes and their families. Their Service and sacrifices are never forgotten — and we’re eternally grateful. I hope you’re doing well.

  5. don frese says

    May 26, 2020 at 10:15 am

    A beautiful tribute, thank you.

  6. Gerald Gibbons says

    May 26, 2020 at 8:23 pm

    Doug, those of us who are older, I think, know family members, neighbors, friends, classmates who made great sacrifices to protect our American way of life in all the wars since WWI. Corky was obviously one of those. Thanks for sharing your story.

  7. Lucille Dolab says

    May 27, 2020 at 3:41 pm

    Our hearts break when we read of such sacrifices as your treasured friend made, never thinking of themselves, only living by their creed “to never leave a comrade behind!!!” Thank you, Doug, for reminding us of this hero, as we must never forget him or the others like him who represent the best of the best our country is blessed to have had in defense of our liberties and that of other nations of the world!!!

  8. Michael Barford says

    June 4, 2020 at 2:16 pm

    Unrelated, sorry for that:

    Sitting here listening to Uan Rasey play in Chinatown.

    Had to look him up. My grandpa made trumpets and played (briefly) in silent movie orchestras.

    Spellbound.

    Please tell Major Ram’s family he lives on.

    Best,.

    Mike

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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