[GailA]

Ralph was a dumb hick farm boy who joined like hundreds of thousands of others after Pearl Harbor. He came back pretty wild. Dennis used to tell how he'd get drunk in town, ride his motorcycle through the town at night and shoot out the stop lights when he got caught by them. He'd out run the cops too. Probably the only thing he did extremely well was shoot. Most farm boys were expert marksmen where as the city boys didn't know which end of the gun was up.

Ralph had a nasty bayonet would along with other smaller wounds. He was with Merrill until they told him he maxed out his enlistment time.

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. You're right about those hick country boys. My dad was raised up in West Virginia and Southern Ohio. Used to tell stories about shooting cans off each others heads across the creek. He joined up early like most of the boys back then. They did know how to shoot.