Remembering Ralph

Guest Post by Brian Beasley

 



I believe in most everyone's life, there are a handful of people outside that person's family that have a profound effect on them and the direction their life takes. For many, it's a teacher or a youth leader or a best friend. Ralph Strickland was one of those people in my life. He's probably the number one reason why I am in the job I am in today and is certainly the reason why I do my job the way that I do it. Ralph passed away last Saturday evening at the age of 69 and I am glad that he was my friend.

I met Ralph early in my legal career when he came to work at the Durham District Attorney's Office, where I was still a wet-behind-the-ears prosecutor. I remember that I was initially resistant to the idea of him working there because he was coming in as a supervisor for District Court (where misdemeanors and traffic cases are heard) and I was one of the District Court prosecutors. I really didn't see the need for another supervisor (especially since I was still new enough to believe I knew absolutely everything.)

But Ralph and I hit it off immediately. We were both Christians, we had both attended UNC for undergraduate and law degrees, and we shared the same bizarre sense of humor. (Ralph's favorite comic strip was "The Far Side") Without setting out to do so, Ralph became a mentor to me. He was a family man, and he was quick to remind me that my family was much more important than the practice of law. He believed firmly that whether you were a police officer or a prosecutor, you did things the right way whether you won or lost the case in court. He was a man of the highest integrity.

Prior to us working together, Ralph had spent almost all of his legal career representing and training law enforcement agencies and officers. He had worked for three different agencies (he would later add a fourth) and had been the senior trainer with the North Carolina Justice Academy, where officers from all over the state would go to be taught. He used humor to make the legal instruction interesting and entertaining and he was a highly effective teacher because of it.

It was Ralph that encouraged me to take my current job as the attorney for the High Point Police Department when it became available and I had grown tired of being an Assistant District Attorney. We had both left the Durham office years prior, but had kept in touch through phone calls in a time before Facebook made it much easier to do so. When I took the job, he told me that the best things I could do was make sure the officers knew they could call me with questions any time day or night and to regularly put out interesting training material using humor so that the officers would actually read it. I have become known here for my bi-weekly "legal updates" and that's all because of Ralph.

I did not find out until a few years ago that Ralph had suffered with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for most of his life, stemming from his experiences as an Air Force soldier in Vietnam. He had been exposed to Agent Orange while he was over there and that had led to a host of medical issues as well. Through treatment at the VA, he seemed to finally be reaching a place where these things were being controlled. In fact, over the last few months, he seemed to be much better when I would speak with him on the phone.

The call I got from his wife, Drusylla, last Sunday morning came as a huge shock as she told me that Ralph had passed away. I am thankful that God arranged it so that Ralph and I had just spoken on the phone the night before his death. I was also blessed to be able to meet Ralph and Drusylla for a lunch during the last Christmas season, something that was very difficult for Ralph to do because of his medical struggles.

I will miss Ralph and our talks. He was one of the few people I could talk to where in one phone conversation we would cover sports, religion, politics, law, and have a lot of laughs doing it. I don't know that I will ever be able to read all of the books he has graciously given me over the years. I know for certain that I will never be able to repay him for pouring wisdom into my life. I also know for certain that I will see him again one day - and that is the greatest blessing of all.

This post has been written for Ralph's blog and the Brian Beasley Music page and is posted on both as a tribute to Ralph.

THERE IS NO END OF THINGS IN THE HEART

 

An Essay on Love, Loss, Pain and Life As It Must Be Lived

 

The following quotes are from the novel “Lost Light”, Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 2003.

 

Page 3

“There is no end of things in the heart.

Somebody once told me that.  She said it came from a poem she believed in.  She understood it to mean that if you took something to heart, really brought it inside those red velvet folds, then it would always be there for you.  No matter what happened, it would be there waiting.  She said this could mean a person, a place, a dream.  A mission.  Anything sacred.  She told me that it is all connected in those secret folds.  Always.  It is all part of the same and will always be there, carrying the same beat as your heart.

I am fifty-two years old and I believe it.  At night when I try to sleep but can’t, that is when I know it.  It is when all the pathways seem to connect and I see the people I have loved and hated and helped and hurt.  I see the hands that reach for me.  I hear the beat and see and understand what I must do.  I know my mission and I know there is no turning away or turning back.  And it is in those moments that I know there is no end of things in the heart.”

 

Pages 125 - 126

“I’m a believer in the single-bullet theory.  You can fall in love and make love many times but there is only one bullet with your name etched on the side.  And if you are lucky enough to be shot with that bullet then the wound never heals.  … What I do know is that Eleanor Wish had been my bullet.  She had pierced me through and through.  There were other women before and other women since but the wound she left was always there.  It would not heal right.  I was still bleeding and I knew I would always bleed for her.  That was just the way it had to be.  There is no end of things in the heart.”

 

[This is a detective novel told in the first person by a retired LA detective named Harry Bosch.  He had married a woman named Eleanor Wish and it had not worked out.  I sincerely think you should read the novel.  Bosch fights to solve a senseless cold case murder of a young lady; that is one of those things, for him, for which “there is no end of things in the heart.”

 

There are at least 15 novels with Harry Bosch as the protagonist and narrator written by Connelly and they are all powerful and meaningful reading.

 

The poem the woman mentioned to Bosch (I would not leave you hanging on that) was from the Chinese poems of Li Po, often said to be the greatest poet of China.  The poem was written by him while in exile around 760 A.D. to an old friend and was translated by an American poet, Ezra Pound from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa and the decipherings of Professors Mori and Araga.  The pertinent part of the poem is as follows:

 

‘And once again we met, later, at the South Bridge head.             

And then the crowd broke up—you went north to San palace.       

And if you ask how I regret that parting?     

It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end, 

                    confused, whirled in a tangle.    

What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking—           

There is no end of things in the heart.

 

I call in the boy,

Have him sit on his knees to write and seal this, 

And I send it a thousand miles, thinking.’]

 

 

You must think of all the people who have found a place in your heart or have placed things there – a dream to make a reality; a place to visit or live; another person for you to love and care for; a mission in life that you cannot fail in completing.  We do not always set our own plans, guide our own ship, steer our own course or live the life we wanted.  Life does not work that way.

And you might have to live your life, if you, too, believe in the single-bullet theory, without ever feeling that special love that comes from being shot by the person who has your name etched on their bullet.  Some mornings I am an absolute believer in that theory from my personal experience and the experiences of many others.  Other days I think that surely there must be more than one person for you in this huge world and it is just a matter of finding him or her.  Still, that is such an impossible task for any one without Divine help.  Is it merely fate, blind luck or a good guess on the part of two people? 

 

How do two people discern lust from love?  I do not know the answer to that.  However, I can tell you this: if you are dating, can you imagine lying together in bed, clothe-less, kissing and kissing, then falling asleep with nothing else happening?  If so, that seems, at least to me, like a good sign of love.  I DO NOT suggest this as a test, though.  Who knows what the fires of passion will do to your best intentions?

 

All I can say is that in the 7^th grade at Carr Jr. High School (building there; new name; new offerings) in the fall semester of 1957 I looked into the eyes of Drusylla Ann Murray and fell into her soul.  There was never a question for me after that – SHE WAS THE ONE.  I was 12-years-old; she was 11-years-old (turning 12 January 26, 1958.)  How could I know?  She certainly didn’t.  What can an 11-year-old girl offer a 12-year-old boy at that moment FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE?  Danged if I knew then or, looking back, now.

 

A week or so ago, out of the blue, Drusylla sent me this email.  My bullet with her name etched on it must have wounded her powerfully.

 

“Thank you for loving me as you have.  You express yourself in so many ways.  I love you so! – Yours forever, Drusylla”

 

 

A small, terrible, though interesting thought just seared by brain.  God forgive me, please.  When I was in Vietnam, among the many jobs the Base Commander found for me to do was to act as a Sniper (many missions).  Some of you know that on the worst day of my life I took the life of an 11-year-old girl who was carrying offensive weapons, from the distance of a mere two hundred yards: headshot; no pain.  It was, forgive me, a “watermelon popper.”  That is simply because when you hit a person in the head it was just like you’d popped a watermelon.  I told you that because I thought you should know some of the truth of war.

 

I know she was 11 because just before the shot I heard a still, small voice say, “She is eleven years old.”  The voice did not sound angry or blameworthy or mad.  It was so very soft and clear and barely loud enough to hear.  I sometimes think I may have said it; I am certain I did not know her age and I did not speak.  Of course, my action was right militarily, though perhaps not religiously or morally - in my eyes.

 

Or was it?  The positions a war can put you into and give you 20 seconds to decide your course of action, can leave you forever wondering if you did the right thing.  I am convinced I did right, although the pain feels the same as if I was wrong.  What if the 11-year-old girl had been the 11-year-old Drusylla and it was another Sniper? I cannot begin to contemplate that.

 

In his book about Vietnam, “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts:” Colonel David Hackworth and his wife, Eilhys England, Rugged Land; 2003 devotes a whole chapter, Chapter 11, “SNIPER CONTROL CENTER 15 March 1969,” to the snipers of the U.S. Army’s 4^th Battalion, 39^th Infantry.

 

NCO Larry Tahler, a Sniper, told of a time when, early one morning, he killed six VC.  “I [then] turned my scope on this one,” Tahler told me [Hackworth] later, “and it was a girl.  All I could think was how lovely she was.”  Young and beautiful and packing an AK-47 – not exactly a Donut Dolly.  Tahler did his job and blew her away.  “I still see her face,” he says.     

 

An anonymous sniper, at the end of his tour speaks to an NCO, Sergeant Robertson, about his job.

“I’ve killed too many people to go home,” the Sniper replied.  “I don’t deserve to go home.  I’ve got more confirmed kills than I want to remember, Robby,” the Sniper said.  “You know what I mean?”  Robby did.

 

“As a Sniper, through my scope,” the Sniper said, “I saw every one of their faces, usually at the moment of impact.  You don’t know what it’s like to see the shock on their faces or the agony when the bullet strikes.  One minute the guy’s happy as a Surfer with great waves, not even aware I’m around.  The next, he’s dead.  And I see every one of them now whenever I close my eyes.  I’m a killer, Robby, and there’s no place for me in the world.”

 

“I sat there in silence,” Robby remembers.

 

No power on earth could heal the sniper.”

 

 

Thank you for reading and thinking abut my essay on love and things in the heart.  Ponder this over and over.  There is much wisdom here.  I know.  I am 68 years old and I have experienced so very much.

 

I still see her face.

 

Ralph B. Strickland, Jr.

Retired

Completely Disabled in Accordance with The Veterans Administration Rules and Policies

February 2014

 

God bless all here.

 

A Prayer For Women With Breast Cancer From Ralph

A PRAYER FOR WOMEN WITH BREAST CANCER

From Ralph B. Strickland, Jr.

 

Today Lord many women are suffering the pain of breast cancer, though I am aware You know that.

 

I know they must be so afraid!  I have been terrified myself Lord, especially when I served my country in Vietnam.  Prayer is the only answer to personal terror, I know. Therefore, I run to you, my Father, because these women need Your strength, love and courage.  Yet many may find it too difficult after therapy for sustained daily prayer.

 

God, grant me the privilege to stand in their place. Take my courage and strength, such as it is, and multiply it among them as You did the loaves and fishes that day so long ago. I pray to You, Father, to give them the courage to get through what they must face, day after day.  During those dark hours in the middle of the night when their anxieties and fears must overwhelm them, use my prayers and my courage through You to give them the calmness to remember to turn to You and to relax in the shelter of Your arms.

 

“Behold”, as Isaiah said, “God is my salvation: I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord, God is my strength.” Isaiah12:2

 

During their days ahead of treatment, be it radiation, Chemotherapy or surgery, and the loss of their privacy, dignity, and perhaps, even the loss of their hair, let them feel Your Presence in their lives.  While lying in a CT scanner, having their veins probed and stuck for blood tests, or while they are waiting for test results use me and my prayers through You so that they remember that they are most certainly NOT alone and that Lord, You are especially with them. I pray they experience the blessings in this time of their testing of Your love for them.

 

May each woman know the sustaining love and support of their family and friends.  I thank you dear Lord, for the wonderful doctors, nurses, technicians, modern technology and drugs that are available to help fight this disease.  What a blessing they are!  With all our help and prayers, Lord, may they meet this challenge one day at a time knowing You are at their side with Your loving arms around them.

 

Use me, Lord, for I am here.  You know me.  You remember me from all my prayers. Let me make a sacrifice for them that You deem appropriate.  I ask a personal favor, Lord: that You especially take care of Mrs. Kelly Horne Phillips who inspired this prayer.  I'd appreciate it very much. 

 

I ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

 

Amen

Leaving Vietnam

Late July 1971

Ralph B. Strickland, Jr.

I left the Republic of South Vietnam late in the month of July of 1971 after spending 362 days “in country.”  I arrived in Vietnam with one medal and one ribbon and left with 6 medals and 2 ribbons.  I was busy and called upon to do many things.  As I sat in the Flying Tiger Airliner at Cam Rahn Bay I looked at my left chest and felt a sense of pride in what I had accomplished – 8 ribbons reflecting my awards.  I did not go there to receive them but they came my way.

We were seated six across, really jammed together, and we were all exhausted from our year in the tropics.  I had lost 56 pounds and had been in a coma for two weeks and nobody knew why.  My VA doctors here in the states have diagnosed it as malaria. 

So we sat stone-faced, and other than a few handshakes we sat silently.  For me, I could not believe it was finally all over and when we took off it would be a 24-hour flight, more or less, on three planes, to get me to North Carolina. 

That very morning I had left Phan Rang Air Base in a C-123 cargo plane during a mortar attack and the pilot did a “combat takeoff” to minimize the risk of our being hit by a mortar, rocket or other killing device.  Basically, all the cargo planes had two propeller driven engines and each such plane in country now had an additional two jet engines out toward the end of the wings to use for combat takeoffs and also for the notoriously SHORT runways in country.

The pilot would roll to the flight line with the prop engines warmed and, without stopping, kick in the jets and we’d shoot down the runway for what seemed like 30 feet and take off straight up into the air.  Yes, it was longer than 30 feet and no, we didn’t go straight up – but it felt like it. 

The seats were canvas in metal racks and down the sides of the fuselage and that gave you a special airsick feeling.  You weren’t leaning back on takeoff – you were cantered at a crazy angle sideways.  The center of the fuselage would be taken up with equipment because, after all, it WAS a CARGO plane. 

So the very day I left Vietnam the bad guys were taking their last shots at me – I was the only guy at Phan Rang leaving for “The World” that day.

Finally, the stewardesses went around our Flying Tigers plane spraying bug spray and then closed and locked the fuselage doors as the cockpit crew fired up the four jet engines.  In no time we were rolling down one of Cam Rahn Bay’s giant runways and then lifted off into a bright blue sky. 

Immediately we swung out over the South China Sea headed for Japan and the Captain came on the intercom, welcomed us aboard his aircraft, gave us the weather and travel time and thanked us for our service to our country. 

The microphone clicked off and almost instantly came back on an the Captain said, “Oh, yes, I almost forgot.  You men are officially no longer in Vietnam!”

Well, that changed the atmosphere on board that plane – people cried, cheered, laughed, cried and just slid down in their seats.  We had all been sitting at attention without realizing it.

Then he came back on the intercom and said he had a special song he played on every return trip and it was nothing official – just a song by Chuck Berry to say, “Welcome Home!”  And he played

BACK IN THE U.S.A.

By Chuck Berry

Released 1958-1959

Oh well, oh well, I feel so good today,
We touched ground on an international runway
Jet propelled back home, from over the seas to the USA

New York, Los Angeles, oh, how I yearned for you
Detroit, Chicago, Chattanooga, Baton Rouge
Let alone just to be at my home back in ol' St. Lou.

Did I miss the skyscrapers did I miss the long freeway?
From the coast of California to the shores of Delaware Bay
You can bet your life I did, till I got back to the USA

Looking hard for a drive-in, searching for a corner cafe
Where hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day
Yeah, and a juke-box jumping with records like in the USA

Well, I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA
Yes. I'm so glad I'm livin' in the USA
Anything you want, we got right here in the USA

*

Altogether, he played it 5 times during the flight and we learned the words and sang along.  It was like a punch in the gut – it woke us to the reality of a juke box and hamburgers and GIRLS and in my case my wife, Drusylla, my daughter Lalenya – 16 months old; oh what I had missed – and my parents.

Back in the USA - thanks Chuck, more than you’ll ever know.  And to that aircrew – you were all special!

You may hear the song on You Tube.

This is a picture of a C123K with the two outboard jet engines.  This picture appears to be from Vietnam and although the soldiers are in fatigues they are probably on the way to “The World” though they are not in tan uniforms but are in fatigues.  They’ll change at Cam Rahn or Tan Son Nhut in Saigon.

Notice the weather.  It just loved to rain.

After Nam

AFTER NAM

After Nam

It took me a long time to realize

that every time it thundered,

some body did not have to die.

-       Pete “Doc” Fraser

3/187

Psalm 51

St. Thomas More, beheaded by Henry VIII (I'M Henry the 8th I am) because he would not take an oath, is the patron saint of attorneys in the Catholic Church. He always prayed this Psalm 6 times a day along with all his other prayers and business. PRAY it once (not read it) and I think you'll see why.

Psalm 51

[1] Have mercy on me, O God,
according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
[2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
[3] For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
[4] Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in thy sight,
so that thou art justified in thy sentence
and blameless in thy judgment.
[5] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
[6] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
[7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
[8] Fill me with joy and gladness;
let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
[9] Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
[10] Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
[11] Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy holy Spirit from me.
[12] Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
[13] Then I will teach transgressors thy ways,
and sinners will return to thee.
[14] Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
thou God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of thy deliverance.
[15] O Lord, open thou my lips,
and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.
[16] For thou hast no delight in sacrifice;
were I to give a burnt offering, thou wouldst not be pleased.
[17] The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
[18] Do good to Zion in thy good pleasure;
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
[19] then wilt thou delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on thy altar.

 

Revised Standard Edition, 1952

Meditation on Christmas Eve

ANGELO GIUSEPPE RONCALLI (POPE JOHN XXIII)

This was written on Christmas Eve, 1902 by a young Italian named Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli who was studying for the priesthood in Rome.

Night has fallen; the clear, bright stars are sparkling in the cold air; noisy, strident voices rise to my ear from the city, voices of the revelers of this world who celebrate with merrymaking the poverty of their Savior.  Around me in their rooms my companions are asleep, and I am still wakeful, thinking of the mystery of Bethlehem.
   
Come, come, Jesus, I await you.    

Mary and Joseph, knowing the hour is near, are turned away by the townsfolk and go out into the fields to look for a shelter.  I am a poor shepherd; I have only a wretched stable, a small manger, some wisps of straw.  I offer all these to you, be pleased to come into my poor hovel.  I offer you my heart; my soul is poor and bare of virtues, the straws of so many imperfections will prick you and make you weep -- but oh, my Lord, what can you expect?  This little is all I have.  I am touched by your poverty.  I am moved to tears, but I have nothing better to offer you.  Jesus, honor my soul with your presence, adorn it with your graces.  Burn this straw and change it into a soft couch for your most holy body.    

Jesus, I am here waiting for your coming.  Wicked men have driven you out, and the wind is like ice.  I am a poor man, but I will warm you as well as I can.  At least be pleased that I wish to welcome you warmly, to love you and sacrifice myself for you.