Ray, Charles A
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The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project AMBASSADOR CHARLES A. RAY Interviewed by: Charles Stuart Kennedy Initial interview date: February 5, 2013 Copyright 2013 ADST TABLE OF CONTENTS Background Born and raised in Texas arly youth Racial segregation Schooling University of Maryland Night school at several other institutions United State Army; Major at retirement 1962-19,2 -ermany. Fort Bragg Officers Candidate School 0OCS1 Fort Benning Panama 2ietnamese language training 2ietnam Counter intelligence training 2ietnamese troops 3orea 0c1973-19761; 01979-19,11 3orean troops Presidio. Monterrey Family ntered the Foreign Service 19,2 Class composition A-100 Course -uang7hou. China8 Consular Officer 19,3-19,4 nvironment Schooling International Trade Fair Immigrant visa cases American tourists 1 Li7 Raspolic Relations Chinese language Surveillance Social Security checks Hong 3ong Family Travel 2isas Recreation Shenyang. China8 Chief of Consular Section 19,4-19,7 Consular district Russian trade mission Harbin North 3orea Foreigner restrictions South 3orea trade American commercial interests Diplomatic Service Bureau ntertainment and recreation One child policy Relations with embassy Air pollution Dalian ice festival Cultural Revolution State Department8 Foreign Service Institute 0FSI1; Thai language training 19,7-19,, Chiang Thailand8 Administrative Officer 19,,-1991 Drug trade Laotian refugees Staff Royal family Operations Chinese Movie career Sex tourists Recreation and travel Laos/Burma/Thailand border Burmese incursions Americans in trouble State Department8 Assistant to the Director. Office of Defense 1991-1993 Trade Controls8 Political Military Bureau Operations 2 ATM machines License and export restrictions Public relations Family Children?s education Freetown. Sierra Leona8 Deputy Chief of Mission 1993-1996 -overnment National Provincial Ruling Council 0NPRC1 2alentine Strasser Foday Sankoh?s Revolutionary United Front nvironment Relations with government Country recent history US military training missions AID humanitarian assistance mission Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance British Tribes Slaves in America Muslim/Christian population Diamonds 3imberly process Rebel war lections Security Ambassador Peters Ambassador John Hirsh Rebels Chairman Strasser Junta Tejan 3abbah ducation Infrastructure USAID Mission Consular functions International Military ducational and Training Program 0IM T1 United Nations Development Program 0UNDP1 mbassy security force Nigerian troops conomic Community of Aest African States Monitoring -roup 0 COMOS1 COMO-8 Military deployment under COMOS. Charles Taylor Military brutality The Lords Resistance Army Non--overnment Organi7ations 0N-Os1 3 Sierra Rutile mbassy staff Sierra Leone communities in US Morale Lebanese community Recreation Joe Opala Aife?s activities President Tejan 3abbah The National Aar College 1996-1997 Student body Course of instruction South Asia Study Tour Pakistan impressions Ho Chi Minh City. 2ietnam8 Consul -eneral 199,-2001 mbassy buildings nvironment Personal relations with 2ietnamese Hanoi Hannah Returning 2ietnamese Montagnards MIAs Reeducation camps Adoption shams Recreation Foreign consulates Bill. Chelsea and Hillary Clinton visit 2ietnamese communism 2ietnamese people Role of women Senior Seminar 2001-2002 Student body 9/11 Stuck in Seattle Operations Comments on course value United States Ambassador to Cambodia 2002-200C Privacy Act Strategic importance Differences with Congressional staff member Paul -rove Terrorist activity 4 Jamaah Islamiya activities Cham Muslims Past Chinese activity Tangle with State Department bureaucracy US/2ietnam relations China South China Sea Spratly Islands Norodom Sihanouk 2ietnam/Cambodia relations Buddhism Muslims US Health and ducation programs Cham students Prostitution and sex trafficking Protect Act Americans in trouble International Justice Mission 0IJM1 3hmer Rouge Cambodian Documentation Center Recreation Trust and institution building -overnment Industry Textiles Tourism Angkor Aat Adoptions US Cambodian communities Refugees Drugs Ho Chi Minh Trail Diplomatic community Ranariddh Chinese investments Christie Todd Ahitman Human trafficking Thailand relations 2ietnam relations Diplomat in Residence. University of Houston. Texas 200C-2006 Political Science Department -rover Joseph Rees University system locations Operations Lectures 5 Foreign Service recruiting DSneakerE talks Student body Texas demographics Department of Defense; Deputy Assistant Secretary for 2006-2009 Prisoners of Aar and Personnel Affairs POA/MIA Recognition Day Totality of MIAs Operations Office structure Outreach Foreign government cooperation. or lack Prisoner of war monetary entitlements Life Sciences Lab DNA labs Sunk ship casualties Political interests Meeting MIA family members Conspiracy theories xamples Defense Prisoner of Aar Missing Personnel Office Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service Remains of Scott Speicher United States Ambassador to Fimbabwe 2009-2012 Relations with State Department Robert Mugabe Opposition US Policy -overnment Fimbabwean Army of National Unity conomy Land sei7ures Local press Outreach to young Facebook friends and subscribers -overnment competence Inflation Sanctions Anti-Americanism Meetings with Mugabe Agriculture Cronyism British Personal family background 6 mbassy staff Fimbabwe future Retirement 2012 Post Retirement Publishing Speaking engagements Personnel recovery. Defense Department INTERVIEW Q: Today is the 5th of February 2013, interview with Ambassador Charles . Ray, R- -). Do you go by Charles* RAG8 Charles. but most people call me Charlie Q: What does the A stand for* RAG8 Aaron. My mother got it from the Bible. Q: -R-R, RAG8 Two A?s. I grew up in Texas where everybody?s name has to be longer than everyone else?s. Q: Absolutely, well let-s start at the beginning. When and where were you born* RAG8 I was born July C. 194C in a little town called Center. Texas. It?s in Shelby County in an area called the ArkLaTex. right near the tri-border of Louisiana. Arkansas. and Texas area. Q: Sort of the Red River area* RAG8 Aell its south of the Red River area whereHthe town I was born in is about twenty miles from the Louisiana border and it?s the Sabine River and if you want to use the fancy one about 60 miles or so west of Shreveport. Louisiana. Q: Well let-s start on the family. let-s start on your father-s side. What do you /now about your father-s side of the family* RAG8 My father?s family comes from a little south of where I grew up in St. Augustine County and I remember my grandfather. my father?s father was still alive when I was 7 growing up. To sort of put it in perspective my father and mother broke up when I was a tiny infant so we grew upH Q: Quite separate. RAG8 HIuite separate. My father?s family was sort of a mixture of African/Scottish and Native American from the area around St. Augustine County which is south of where I grew up in what they call the Big Bend area. lake area. My dad was a railroad brakeman for good grief till they made him return in his early 70s; sort of a gad about. Q: He was a moving man* RAG8 He moved until they finally made him retire and a few years after he retired he just said I?ve had it and he died of a heart attack; but he was in his late 70?s. Q: 1/ay, on your mother-s side* RAG8 My mother?s side is also a rather heterogeneous family. My grandmother who actually raised me was the daughter of a Juesada Indian man and a slight woman that he purchased. Q: That is one of the things that-s often not /nown that many of the Indians, RAG8 Purchased. Q: ,had slaves. I mean they were very southern. RAG8 Oh yeah. in his case he purchased her as a bride not as a slave but it was a purchase. She was a bit of a feisty type all of about five feet tall. born sometime a few years after the Civil Aar. I don?t remember her exact date of birth but it would have been sometime in the late 1,,0s or probably so just about twenty years after the Civil Aar. She was a real frontier type. always lived by herself until she died when she was almost 100. She carried a gun around with a barrel as long as her legs but was deadly accurate with it. was self-taught. never went to school but taught herself how to read and write. She was very strong for such a little woman and the most vivid memories I have as a kid is watching her walk out into the yard. we lived on a little truck farm. grab a chicken that seemed almost as much as she did by the neck. whip it around in the air a couple times and snap its head off. Q: Did you pic/ up anything as a /id about Indian ways or Indian lore that sort of thing* RAG8 From my grandmother I mean because as I said being the daughter of a native American father and an African mother who as far as we could tell and there are no documents surviving to validate it is that my grandmother?s mother probably was a second generation African slave; in other words had been born to someone who had come over. So basically we had two tribal type people thrown together and the fact is that 8 having done that meant that they weren?t accepted completely in the native American community. only so-so in the Black community and that meant that she pretty much grew up with just her mother and father?s influences. I never thought of it as odd when I was a kid. it was just her. Q: It was just the way it was. RAG8 Geah. I think I probably grew up listening to her and had my head filled with a lore that was neither African nor Native American nor totally American but was just an amalgam of the things she had learned growing up. Q: 1/ay, what was this place where you as a /id grew up* RAG8 I grew up in a little town called Tenaha which in the Cato language means muddy water which is very appropriate because it has that red laterite clay and when it rains everything is orange.