Ralph C. Eugley Jr., will be riding on the float in Damariscotta’s Memorial Day Parade this year. At 84, his legs aren’t so good anymore.
No matter. He will be there to honor the mothers and fathers who stand on the sidewalk, the ones who lost their sons in the service of their nation.
“I think the world of mothers and fathers who lost their kids,” he said. “They are standing on the sidewalk on Memorial Day hoping their sons could be on that parade.”
When Ralph speaks, he chooses his words for he is a careful man, a belt and suspenders man; a clammer who still digs on sunny days and likes it because he is his own boss.
He has been married to Lorraine, 77, for 52 years. “She is a good woman. The best,” he said.
Together they had seven children, three girls and four boys. All but one of the boys was a marine, like their dad.
At 5’3″and 135 pounds, the Marines didn’t want to take Ralph when he tried to enlist in 1943, he said. They wanted bigger guys but agreed to give him a chance when the Navy recruiter said he would take him.
“The officer said if I washed out of boot camp, they would send him back home and the Army would pick him up,” Eugley said.
He made it and was assigned to an anti-aircraft unit in Bermuda where he spent most of World War II. He missed combat in that war.
Korea was a different story. Eugley was now a communications sergeant in the infantry. He made the landing at Inchon and learned all about winter in the mountains.
When pressed, he admits he was in a unit that marines call 1-1 (First Battalion of the First Marine Regiment) that rescued some Army soldiers who had been captured by the North Koreans and Chinese and was involved in a battle for a peak called Bunker Hill that they had to capture and recapture five times.
He doesn’t like to talk about the war. “War is not anything to be liked,” he says with a special distaste for movies and TV shows he says glorify battle.
He spent 12 years in the Marines and the marine reserves and tried to enlist for Vietnam, but they said he had too many kids and was too old, he said.
Now, he belongs to the American Legion, Post 42 in Damariscotta and will be with them in the parade to honor the fallen.
He will be there wearing his cap proclaiming he is a veteran of World War II and Korea, but he is clear when he says he was no hero.
“The only heroes are in the grave,” he said. “The rest of us were just lucky.”
Memorial Day is a chance for some folks to brag of their service and their deeds and show off their ribbons. That’s not Ralph Eugley’s way.
“Memorial Day means it is (time to do) my duty, like all living veterans, to respect and praise their comrades that got killed, and do everything we can for their families,” he said.
