For Ralph

Ralph Sasser was two years ahead of me in high school. He was a gifted athlete with a contagious smile and friendship towards all. He married right out of high school and was drafted and sent to Korea where he was killed in April 1951.

His young child wife was pregnant and lived across the road from me when the news arrived of his death. I can still hear her wailing about the loss.

Ralph would be in his seventies had he lived. Maybe he would have grandchildren, like me. Had the Korean War lasted as long as the Vietnam War, I might have been one of that unnecessary war's human sacrifices. Thank goodness a man like President Eisenhower saw the futility of the war and settled for a draw.

Ralph had a school teacher, Mary Locklin, who wrote poems. This is one of her poems.

Charles Tolleson
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For Ralph, by Mary Locklin

As one might choose at random from the store
Of books set neatly dusted side by side.
Death came choosing in artillery's roar
Reached out his hand and touched.
The boy died.
His little book of life is all too small.
Too short the meager days are written there.
School days, young love, warm summer games of ball.
Then page by empty page, unlined and bare.
Read "Finis" at the end and close the book.
So small it lies within a tender hand!
Now lay it on the shelf and never look
To see the graying dust upon it stand.
His life was short and swiftly was it read.
Remember with me now our young and dead.