Ralph Duane Arnold

He was born March 13, 1930, a son of Stuart French Arnold and Rosa Belle Arnold (Felts).

He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Evelyn Maxine Arnold (French), his brothers Lee Arnold, Ray Arnold, and Roy Arnold; his sisters Mildred Arnold and Marie Arnold; his son Phillip Arnold and daughter Pamela Trumbo.

Survivors include his son, Tim Arnold and his wife Lynn Rogers of Staunton, his son-in-law Steven Trumbo, a grandson, Max Trumbo, and his granddaughter Cheryl Reed, her husband Mike Reed, and a great-grandson, Frankie Weeks.

Ralph grew up on a farm in Wythe County and at a young age had his hands on the reins of plow horses out in the free air. The Arnolds grew grain to be milled, and occasionally sold cattle. At about 10 years old, Ralph partnered with his mother to buy an enormous sow, and they split the sales of the piglets.

Ralph’s father worked days at the Austinville Zinc mine as an electrician and farmed before and after work. His mother tended the subsistence garden, cultivating, picking, and canning. And cooking. No one in the area of “Piney” as locals called it, could get sick or fall on a hard spell, or experience a death in the family without Miss Rosie providing pies and cakes and suppers.

But the farm became confining, and soon Ralph acted in the extreme. On his 18th birthday, he quit school and joined the Navy. For a while he had the best of both, training in Norfolk, hitchhiking home for the weekend, and rushing back to duty by Monday morning.

Out in the remote woods of Southwestern Virginia, the only ballgames the radio picked up on summer nights were New York Yankees games. To his delight, Ralph was soon stationed in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. His proximity to Yankee Stadium nourished a lifelong love of the Yankees.

Ralph served aboard the U. S. S. Leyte, an Essex-class aircraft carrier as a gunner’s mate on five-inch guns. As the forties gave way to the Cold War fifties, the Leyte was sent to tour the Mediterranean as a counterpoint to any Soviet thoughts about the Middle East and Turkey. And luckily for Ralph, it appears that the French and Italian Riviera also had to be protected.

Dad was popular aboard ship because he had a record player and LPs by Ray Price, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb, and Hank Williams. Ralph somehow found time to court Evelyn French of Wytheville, Virginia, and they were married on November 6, 1954.

When the Korean War began, the Leyte was sent to provide air support using its fleet of F4U Corsairs. Among its crewmen was legendary Ensign Jesse Leroy Brown, the first African-American aviator in the U.S. Navy.

Months-long cruises soon began to wear on the family. Ralph was soon honorably discharged from the Navy and joined the U.S. Air Force. By the mid-sixties, Ralph was an ordnance sergeant at Tactical Air Command at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. It provided a home-life for Ralph, Evelyn, and their three children. But not for long.

Ralph was sent to Vietnam on Easter Sunday of 1967. He was first stationed at Pleiku Air Base, then Da Nang, and finally Tan Son Nhut Air Base with the Seventh Air Force in Saigon. Ralph won the Bronze Star and the Air Force Commendation Medal for his leadership along the flight line at the base. He barely survived the Tet Offensive in the winter of 1968 when his office was destroyed by the Viet Cong.

Upon his return to the United States, he began working toward his college degree. He had completed his GED years before, and now Ralph set his sights on the seminary and the ministry. His first three churches consisted of tiny, country congregations in Chilhowie, Virginia, Rockbridge County, Virginia, and Matoaka, West Virginia. In 1974, his first church in Chilhowie paid him $25 dollars a week.

He received his Master of Divinity degree at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in 1978 and began taking courses in pastoral care. He briefly worked as a chaplain at Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia. Chaplaincy became his calling, and his fellow veterans would soon be his congregation.

Ralph served as a chaplain at Veterans Affairs hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona, Augusta, Georgia, Hampton, Virginia, and Lebanon and Thorndale, Pennsylvania.

In fifteen years, Ralph ministered to thousands of servicemen and women scarred physically, mentally and spiritually by war. As successful as he was in the service, Ralph was even more so in peace, lifting up his fellow vets with an empathy borne of his own military service.

Ralph and Evelyn retired to Stuarts Draft, Virginia in 2000 and spent most of their time spoiling their grandson Max. Ralph would never say no to a Dairy Queen Blizzard or a milkshake from Kline’s Dairy Bar.

He was self-deprecating and unwilling to talk about his lifelong success: in farming, in High School baseball and basketball, in his uncanny aim with his five-inch guns aboard the Leyte, his heroism in Vietnam, and his heroism treating his military comrades.

He and his wife Evelyn were married nearly 66 years when Evelyn died in 2020. In the span of less than three months this year, Ralph lost his son, Phillip, and his daughter Pamela. In the brief time that his son Tim had him to himself, he remained a rock. A man of integrity, kindness, and compassion, and a man of God.

The afterlife and the qualities of heaven are unknown. They are the “undiscovered country.” For Ralph, it’s probably back home on the farm with his Mom and Dad.

Visitation will begin at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, July 25, 2022 at Reynolds Hamrick Funeral Home in Waynesboro, Virginia with a service to follow at 10:00 a.m. Interment at Augusta Memorial Park in Waynesboro will follow.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that you make a contribution in his name to C.O.V.E.R. Inc., a support facility for Vietnam Vets (vetcover.org) in Charlottesville or Swords into Plowshares, a veteran support organization in San Francisco (swords-to-plowshares.org).

Relatives and friends may share condolences and memories with the family online by visiting www.reynoldshamrickfuneralhomes.com

Arrangements entrusted to the Waynesboro Chapel of Reynolds Hamrick Funeral Homes. 540.949.8383