Jerry Ravino is a member of a family of eight siblings, and was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts.
 The Korean War interrupted his employment at the Pfizer Chemical Production facility in Groton, Connecticut. After returning to Pfizer, he spent 30 years with the company and retired as a shift foreman in the production of antibiotics and Ascorbic Acid. For the next 20 years he was employed as a certified National Certified Addictions Professional (N.C.A.P.), working in New London, Connecticut, and Clearwater, Florida, where he retired from Operation PAR (Parental Awareness and Responsibility.)
In 1999 Ravino was approached by the late Colonel Edward T. Imparato, an author and a retired former commander of a U.S. Air Force Squadron in the Pacific Campaigns of World War II. In discussions with Mr. Imparato about the Korean War and his participation as a flame tank commander in the First Tank Battalion, First Marine Division, Ravino was urged by the author to record the history of the unique Flame Platoon. With Mr. Imparato’s continue motivation, it became the catalyst that prompted the writing of Flame Dragons of the Korean War.
Colonel Imparato had authored a number of books about World War II, including The 374 Troop Carrier Group, Rescue from Shangri-La, Out of Darkness, Melbourne to Tokyo and General MacArthur (Speeches and Reports 1908-1964).
A nagging force driving Ravino’s desire to tell the Flame Platoon history was triggered by Operation Clambake on 3 February 1953 in which the Platoon’s commanding officer was killed, another Flame Tanker mortally wounded, and Ravino himself, after taking over as tank commander of F21 in the heat of battle, was among five other crewmen wounded.
Ravino returned from Korea to marry his childhood sweetheart, Dotty Daly, and is the proud father of Dorothea, Jerry E. and Thomas G., and grandfather of four. In 1982, he married Nona Lee Reynolds and they have an adopted grandchild, Michael Mcalister.
As a member of the Marine Corps League Detachment 708, Spring Hill, Florida, Ravino proudly wears the Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon (w/star) Presidential Unit Citation (w/star), Good Conduct Ribbon, and Korean Service Ribbon (three stars). He also is a member of The Korean War Project, The Disabled Americans Veterans of America, The Marine Corps Tankers Association and an Associate Member of the Vietnam Tankers Association.
At present, fueled by a deeper interest and
appreciation for
writing the military
history of
the Korean
War, Ravino is working
on his second book -
- THE ELITE, an
account of the
Reconnaissance
Company,
Headquarters Battalion,
First Marine Division
1950 to 1953.
He has
outstanding
support and i
s involved with many
of the former
Recon Marines. |
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Jack Carty is a graduate of Journalism 101 as mandated by an era when few newspaper people ever saw the inside of a college classroom.
Son of a journeyman printer, Carty, like his father, spent his entire professional career with the Courier-Post, the largest New Jersey daily and Sunday in the seven southern counties of the Garden State.
Starting as a copyboy at $18.50 a week with the Morning Post and Evening Courier shortly after graduating from Camden Catholic (NJ) High School in 1947, the teenager intended to follow the footsteps of his Dad and become a printer. But a timely opening in the paper’s Sports Department, sent the so-so high school athlete in another direction. With more attention to baseball and football, and little interest in the subject of English while in high school, he was ill-prepared for what was to come. Fortunately, he fell under the strict guidance and of several hard-nosed, but patient, editors.
After two years of reporting local scholastic and sandlot sporting events for what became the Courier-Post after the morning paper was discontinued, the Korean War came along. When faced with his draft notice, Carty enlisted in the United State Marine Corps. In the middle of his three-year enlistment, he spent a year with the Flame Platoon, Headquarters Company, First Tank Battalion, First Marine Division, in the Land of the Morning Calm.
By the time he returned to the working world late in 1953, he had married his fiancée, Pat, and started a family. He wrote local sports stories and columns the next 14 years, during which the Courier-Post joined Gannett News Service as one of its premier newspapers. In 1964, the Philadelphia Phillies made an ill-fated run for the National League pennant, and Carty became the paper’s first professional-sports beat writer.
After the baseball season, he requested a transfer to the newsroom where he did news rewrite, and went up the line “on the desk” as makeup editor, regional editor and assistant news editor. He was named the newspaper’s first The Way We Live section editor, News Features Editor and Graphics Editor.
He considered each step along the way of his
“labor of love” as just another class in Journalism 101. He finished out the final nine years of his full time career as assistant sports editor before retiring in 1990. He still writes Jackstraws, a weekly sports notes column on local college athletes, for the paper.
During his long run with the Courier-Post, Carty received several writing and news page makeup and design awards from the New Jersey Press Association. In 1975 his The Way We Live section of the Courier-Post was recipient of a Penney-University of Missouri Newspaper Award for excellence of lifestyle and people pages among newspapers with 100,000-250,000 circulation.
Jack and Pat, continue to reside near their childhood homes in Southern New Jersey. They are proud parents of six children and nine grandchildren -- the oldest four of whom are, or soon will be, college graduates. |
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