To my Daughter-in-Law

Dear Ana,

Your husband, your sister-in law, and your mother-in-law know, to a great extent, about all of this.* 

The Rancks, your new family, are an old family. Samuel Ranck fought in the American Revolutionary War as a private and crossed the Delaware River on Christmas Night at the Battle of Trenton under George Washington. My grandmother was a Daughter of the American Revolution.

My great-great grandfather (on my mother's side) was killed to save the Union at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862 in the American Civil War.

My maternal grandfather fought for America in World War I.

My oldest brother was an Air Force Captain as a dentist in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.

That is a thumbnail sketch. 

My uncle, your husband's great-uncle, John W. Kephart Ranck, was killed in World War II in Italy on April 40, 1945 by German bombers, the day that Hitler committed suicide. Hitler's airmen didn't get the memo that the war in Europe was over.

Uncle Jack was a member of the legendary 10th Mountain Division, the "ski troops", survivors of which founded the Colorado ski resorts.

From the official history of the 10th:

""1st Lt John W. K. Ranck's Co. B, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment advancing in the Italian mountains in January, 1945."

"Ordinary soldiers might have been daunted by the geological feature rising in front of them. But these were not ordinary soldiers. These were members of an elite outfit called the 10th Mountain Division
—the only American division specially trained for mountain and winter warfare.
...
"General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, had called the division a bunch of "playboys”—and with some justification. No other infantry division had a higher collective I.Q. or a higher percentage of high school and college graduates in its ranks. Many of the mountain soldiers had been hotshot skiers from East Coast prep schools and Ivy League colleges."

Uncle Jack was a bonafide war hero:

"March 4, 1945 near Sassomolare, Italy :

"1st Lt. JOHN K. RANCK of Company B led a squad to within grenade range of the Germans. Charging the position, the party killed one German, wounded one, and took four prisoners. 

"Lt. RANCK continued the advance 200 yards farther, taking four more prisoners. Finally he neutralized the gun position, personally killing the gunner while his squad finished off the rest of the occupants.

"April 30, 1945 near Nago:

"The 1st Battalion finally occupied Nago at 1115 that morning. They had fought one of the most discouraging and difficult actions of the entire campaign. For 14 straight hours on the 29th, they had climbed up sheer cliffs, through ravines, and over slippery shale slopes.

"Finally at 1700 they had reached a high point from which they could see Nago. The only approach to the village was through a small cut in the rocks. The Germans had a strong final protective line, a 20 mm gun, a 37 mm ack-ack gun, one tank, and self-propelled guns...

"After a 15-minute artillery barrage, Company B moved through the ravine single-file. As the column wound its way over the rocks, a German plane dipped low and dropped eight personnel bombs on the weapons platoon, killing nine men, including 1st Lieutenant JOHN K. RANCK."

Uncle Jack was awarded the Purple Heart and the "Silver Star, the latter one of the higher military honors in the U.S., posthumously.

He was the Star of the Ranck family, that's for sure, beloved by all, including the townspeople of Barnesboro. His death was a grievous blow. My grandmother, his mother, called "Come Jackie" as she lay dying. My father, his brother, always referred to him as "my kid brother Jack" and kept a framed photo of him in the bedroom behind his reading chair all of his life. My mother, his sister-in-law, remembered when he went off to war, sadly looking up at her and waving. My oldest brother was outside playing on the sidewalk when the big black government car, right out of Saving Private Ryan, drove up to deliver the news. The next thing he heard was our mother screaming. It is a measure of his loss that when your husband was six years old, he was seen by my parents to be sad and when asked said that he missed Uncle Jack. Tonight, 79 years after he was killed, your husband and I talked for thirty minutes on the phone about him.

As I travel to Brazil to meet your extended, accomplished family, welcome you to our family. ❤️

*In the event, my son, the one person that I was sure I had told this to, did not know.