The Cupertino Courier

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Monta Vista grad recalls service in Iraq

By ERIN HUSSEY

"Tonight was special," began an email from Cupertino native Marine Capt. Guy Ravey to his friends and family.

"Tonight we passed by the island of Halmahera. It is a seemingly insignificant blob of tropical land sitting right on the equator near New Guinea and the Philippines, but it holds a great deal of significance to the Ravey family. This is the island where First Lieutenant Will Ravey, U.S. Army Air Corps, was shot down in August of 1944."

Ravey's email reflects on his connection with his Uncle Will, concluding, "In a way, I feel as though I'm bringing a part of Will's spirit home with me."

The email, written in 2003, during Ravey's second deployment to the Middle East, is one of thousands of entries that were chosen to be published in the new book Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families.

Published by Random House, the anthology is the product of the National Endowment of the Arts' National Initiative, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, a project that preserves the personal experiences of U.S. military personnel who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and their families. The Boeing Company, which funded NEA's efforts, is also supporting a nationwide and overseas book tour.

Ravey, a Bay Area native and 1993 Monta Vista High School alumnus, volunteered to attend the Oct. 3 stop in San Francisco at Cody's Books.

"It was my way of passing the time," Ravey said of the emails he sent to a small group of friends and family during his first deployment in 2002.

"Then as the war dragged on and I went on my second deployment, I started losing a lot of friends. I've been married for nine years, and I've spent a lot of time away from my wife. You know, you have your up days and your down days, and it became my way of coping with being overseas and being in the war."

Ravey was raised in Cupertino and can't remember wanting to be anything else but a pilot. By the age of 16, he started learning to fly at the Palo Alto airport, and within a year he had his pilot's license. After graduating from Monta Vista, he attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps and earned a degree in political science.

Ravey said he joined the Marines because "I've always had a love of flying and I've always been really interested in traveling overseas. I was really motivated, mainly by the stories my grandfather told. If I'm going to be totally honest, I was like a lot of young men and women that want some adventure in their lives, but you've got to be careful what you wish for sometimes."

As an F-18 Hornet aircraft carrier pilot, Ravey and his squadron aboard the carrier USS Constellation flew the bulk of naval night bombing attacks during Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. In his two deployments to Iraq he flew more than 50 combat missions. In the past three years, he's spent 27 months at sea.

"I joined the Marine Corps because it was the hardest one, and I've stayed in the Marine Corps because it remains a challenge for me every day," he said. "It's not a job at this point; it's a way of life."

Monta Vista principal April Scott taught Ravey in high school and remembers seeing this passion even in his youth. "I honestly don't think I have ever had a student who was clearer in focus and with personal goals than Guy," she said.

Today, Ravey lives in Virginia with his wife, Navy Lt. Mihae Ravey, and teaches flight school. In nine years of marriage, they have spent fewer than three years in the same house, but for Ravey's next three years, between tours of duty, they will be together. Ravey is uncertain whether he will be called to go back to Iraq, but he says if duty calls, he will go.

Ravey is also already thinking about trying to publish the rest of his emails and written pieces. But for now he is encouraging others to read Operation Homecoming.