B. WAYNE RATLIFF

 

Wayne was born in a fishing cabin on the banks of Pennington Creek near Tishomingo, OK, on October 17, 1942. He passed from this world peacefully, in his sleep with family at his bedside on September 15, 2020, in San Antonio, TX. He was laid to rest on October 14, 2020, at 2 p.m., with military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

The third son of Charles Vernon “Pop” Ratliff and Mary Geraldine McIver, Wayne joined brothers, four-year old Joe V., and two-year old Gerald

E. “Gerry.” According to family lore, Pop got to the birth certificate first and named him Ballard after a friend of the family, but he was always Wayne to family and friends.

To say Wayne led a peripatetic life is a gross understatement. The Army security clearance application he completed at age 18 listed 37

addresses and he could not account for five years. In a bio for his 50^th high school class reunion he listed 36 cities after high school, which did not count moving within those cities. He had at least six different addresses in one of them. When he and Sue finally settled down it rather surprised both of them it was in San Antonio, TX.

A big move was before his junior year in high school. Accustomed to being the second youngest in a blended family of five siblings, Wayne found himself with just his mom and stepfather, Lawrence J. “Larry” Cheatham. That only compounded the culture shock of moving from Rush Springs, OK to Santa Maria, CA in the late 1950s. He soon found his stride and took advantage of

the education and extra-curricular opportunities offered by his new school.

He qualified for the California Scholarship Federation in both junior and senior years, joined the Spanish Club, worked on the school paper, competed on the Wrestling Team, won several speaking awards once he lost most of his “Okie” accent, was elected Student Body President for the fall semester of his senior year, and received a National Merit Letter of Commendation. He also had a Sunday morning program on the local radio station in Spanish (They wouldn’t let him on the air in English. That accent!), and worked alongside the braceros in the commercial flower fields where he practiced his Spanish at every opportunity.

Wayne enlisted in the Army in 1961 just ahead of being drafted.  He served tours in Korea, West Germany, and Vietnam before his discharge in 1970.

On October 8, 1966, Wayne married Marsh Rose. They divorced amicably on March 17, 1971, and remained friends until his death, staying in touch at first by letter, then by email.

He married Susan Adell “Sue” Ostrode Rocha on July 8, 1971. Their wedding, in the chambers of Justice of the Peace Curtis J. Singleton, was hardly a high style affair.  The bride wore a bright yellow mini dress, the groom wore his work uniform of sports coat, tie, and trousers, and they probably cracked several bones in their hands as they held on to each other so tightly.  Two attorneys who happened to be in the building were shanghaied to serve as witnesses.

In addition to a wife, he gained two daughters, Dorothy and Wendy. His stepparent adoption of the girls was finalized days before the birth of Kimberley in 1972. Robyn completed the family in 1974.

On his discharge from the Army, Wayne was determined to become a news reporter. He wrote and talked his way onto the staffs of the San Rafael, CA Independent-Journal, the Fairfield, CA Daily Republic, the Vallejo, CA Times-Herald, and the Tishomingo, OK Capital-Democrat.

Eventually, Wayne did almost every job at a newspaper, from reporting on local government, the police beat, and the courts to editor, columnist, and photographer. It was while he was covering the courts that his love of the law was born, but with a wife and four little girls to support, law school was out of the question.

About a year after the family moved to Tishominngo, Wayne’s desire to give his girls the broadest possible education and serve his country prompted him to explore the possibility of returning to active duty in the Army. After a bit of back and forth with the recruiters—he was too old and had too many children—he was accepted on the conditions that he come in with his old occupational specialty, at his former rank and time in grade, and repeat basic training. Oh, and Sue had to sign a notarized statement swearing not to divorce him for at least a year!

During his first stint in the Army, Wayne submitted applications to attend the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the Presidio of Monterey, CA. He loved languages, both his native English and learning foreign tongues. He basically taught himself German, some Korean, and Vietnamese. Every application was either lost or denied.

His long-held dream was realized when he was accepted into the Defense Language Institute (DLI) at the Presidio of Monterey, CA. Although it meant giving up a plum assignment in Berlin, Germany, he jumped at the chance to learn another language, Czech, in a formal setting.

From DLI the family went to West Germany. After 18 months in Augsburg, Wayne was transferred to Bad Aibling with family quarters in Munich. Not exactly a hardship assignment.

The whole family was enchanted by the customs and culture of Germany. Favorite activities included exploring—walking into unknown neighborhoods or taking the train to a new city and wandering—then using public transit to get home. We also loved shopping “on the economy, “ from food at the Viktualienmarkt, to clothing, shoes, and furniture in the department stores.

Dining out was a special treat as we tried different cuisines and took chances, at his urging, on what the menu items were. No one was ready to leave when it was time to return to the States.

Wayne’s next assignment, at Fort Lewis, WA, was a stabilized four-year tour. His promotion to First Sergeant and the stabilization gave him and Sue all the motivation they needed to buy a home in Lacey, WA, as it appeared he might finish his career there. Two years later he received orders for Germany. An unaccompanied tour was two years; an accompanied tour was three years, with an expected 18-month wait for family quarters. Much to the dismay of Kim and Robyn, he and Sue chose the unaccompanied tour. The girls were in an excellent high school and it seemed likely he might be reassigned to Fort Lewis after the tour. Apparently it was a bit of a surprise to the two teenagers that their stodgy old parents wrote to each other almost daily.

After 14 months in Stuttgart, Wayne came home for Thanksgiving. He’d been home less than a week when he was recalled to his unit for Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He returned to the U.S. with an assignment to Fort Sam Houston in August 1991, and retired on November 1, 1994 with over 23 years on active duty. Among his many decorations, he was proudest of the Legion of Merit he received on retirement.

All his life, Wayne loved learning for the sake of learning. He excelled in both military training classes and the college courses he managed to squeeze in wherever his military assignments took him. When he discovered the external degree program offered by the Regents College of the University of the State of New York, he finally saw a way put together all of those courses to earn a degree. In 1991, thirty-one years after his high school graduation, Wayne received the Charles W. Laffin, Jr. Memorial Award for academic excellence and outstanding achievement and his Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in psychology.