Tat love of a challenge set the stage for his Army Ranger


career, from which he retired as a highly decorated colonel. Among Rangers, he is the “Ranger’s Ranger.” Puckett told me he had a normal small-town childhood, with


strict, but loving parents. “It was clear to the three children, my older sister, my younger brother and me, what we were expected to do and to be.” Considering his distinguished Army career, you would think


that he would have played “army” as a boy. Instead, his interest was in flying. He went to a drug store every week to buy the latest issue of G-8 and his Battle Aces and Te Lone Eagle, 1930s and ‘40s magazines about fictional World War I aces. He started tak- ing flying lessons when he was 15. “I was really behind the controls of an airplane before I was


ever behind the wheel of a car. I soloed when I was 16, and it was a great experience.” When he turned 17, he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps Enlisted


Reserve. He was attending Georgia Tech at the time, 1943. World War II was raging, and aſter a year at Tech, he went into an Army special training program. His dad got a congressman to get him an appointment to West Point, which was still training Army pilots. In 1945, it was still the U.S. Army Air Force. When he graduated from West Point in 1949, aſter a tour of the


1st Lt. Ralph Puckett and his bride Jeannie Martin, Nov. 26, 1952


different branches of service, he signed up for the U.S. Air Force, which had become a separate service in 1947. However, aſter see- ing a bloody propaganda film about World Was II action in Italy, and sampling 82nd Airborne Division training, he changed his


38


Columbus and the Valley


AUGUST 2013


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