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View a eulogy for James Floyd Ray, USMA '59, who passed away on January 9, 1965.

James Floyd Ray

West Point, 1959

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by I-2, 1958 on January 9, 2003:

Well, Jim, this is the anniversary of your death 38 years ago.

I finally made it to Milledgeville to see your name on the Baldwin County War Memorial. It is a suitable site; but the pain remains.

I read Vandiver's book. His notes confirm what we heard in the field concerning your death. Damn, that hurt. I had been hit in December, and I couldn't get to Tan Son Nhut when they sent you home.

You WERE the best of the best. I never had any of your remarkable gifts; but I killed as many as I could for the next five months. That didn't help much.

I'm proud that, for a little while, we were young together. You are young forever.

This is a quotation from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who received the surrender at Appomattox. Your fellow Georgian, John Brown Gordon, who offered the surrender, called him, "One of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal army, General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine..."

"The day is done. Now this little hour draws us near, a lessening band, for one more greeting and farewell. You, my comrades, have called to vision again the days that tested manhood, and forms of those who stood with you, and gave their lives for something they held more dear..."

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