One such individual who embodied the spirit those words were meant to impart recently passed, leaving behind a lasting legacy in the Ranger community. He lived by an ethos and creed few are willing to follow and even fewer able to uphold. He was a legend in a community of men that can call themselves warriors without equivocation. His name was Colonel Ralph Puckett Jr.
Puckett first answered the call to arms in 1943, enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps Enlisted Reserve to become a pilot and kill Nazis in Europe. His plan would not come to fruition, though, due to the program being terminated. Not a man to let bureaucracy stand between him and a good fight, he went on to graduate from West Point in 1949.