MARTIN RAY - VIETNAM WAR
Martin Ray, 79
Gloucester, MA
Born: 10/16/1946
Born/Raised: Westpoint, NY/Various US Army postings
Service: US Army
Unit: Airborne & Ranger School, 538 Engineering Battalion (Thailand), Germany, 525th Military Intelligence (Vietnam).
Rank: Captain
Dates of Service: 1968-1972
When Colonel John Ray felt a need to correct his young son Martin, it was at full military attention. Such was the world of a career military family. Col. Ray, then a military law teacher at Westpoint Academy, came from a long line of military achievers including his three brothers and his father, and his son was going to grow up with the same sense of discipline. Martin’s parents, John and Tova, met in Europe towards the end of WWII. John had been wounded during the Battle of the Bulge, and held as a POW in both Tunisia and Germany before escaping twice. Tova was a Women’s Army Corps nurse from the Boston area serving in England and France.
Their marriage would include raising three children at multiple postings around the country, and the world, including Westpoint, Burma, Japan, California and New York. In high school Martin took correspondence courses from the University of Nebraska and finished his high school career as a senior at the Cambridge School – “It was one of the first big shocks I had.”
The next big shock was his first year as a med-school student at Johns Hopkins Medical School, “I got crushed.” He changed to International Relations and four years later, freshly degreed, he joined the Army Engineers to fulfil his ROTC commitment. “I thought it best to get out in the field and do something with my hands.”
Martin completed Airborne and Ranger Schools and in 1969 was assigned as a lieutenant to the south coast of Thailand and the 538th Engineering Battalion. Fifteen months into his assignment, the Army decommissioned his unit. He applied to go to Germany aware that he was stalling being posted to Vietnam. In 1971, as a captain, he volunteered to go to Vietnam fully expecting to be deployed with the 101st Airborne. Instead, he was assigned to the 525th Military Intelligence Division in Saigon. He spent the next year compiling geographic intelligence studies for upcoming operations, and taking photography classes for himself – “a total life-changer.”
Martin’s return to the world in 1972 was via Lanesville in Gloucester. His grandparents had a place where he’d visited growing up during summer vacations, and his parents retired there from his father’s military career. He got a job as a school bus driver and built a darkroom thinking he was going to be a photographer. He began a Master’s program in History at Salem State, inherited his family property in Lanesville and built a house and a garden setting his roots in Gloucester. Landscape gardening became a career he pursued for 37 years, focusing on the use of granite as a sculptural focus in the design of his landscapes. In 1974 he married folk singer Dorothy Cahill and they had two sons, Marco and Patrick. That marriage ended after 11 years. In 1985 he married Kay Rubin and they’ve been together ever since. They have seven grandchildren. For the past twelve years Martin has maintained a blog called Notes from Halibut Point, his observations of natural and social history on Cape Ann. He’s currently the president of Gloucester Cultural Initiative and is a member of Veterans for Peace.