When the Poplar Bluff High School Class of 2004 trooped across the stage to receive their diplomas, one graduate wasn't with them.
Chuck Ray was in California being yelled at by Marine Corps boot camp instructors.
Before finishing high school, Ray decided to join the Marine Corps delayed entry program. So, as soon as he finished high school, he left for boot camp in San Diego. He was 17.
Why did he enlist?
"I wasn't doing anything else in life. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself and wanted to do it on my own. I didn't want to be the guy that dad paid his way through life.
"Dad (Steve Ray, a retired Union Pacific special agent who lives in Poplar Bluff) always talked about how he regretted not going to Vietnam. I didn't want to go down that road so I seized the opportunity to make sure I didn't regret it later."
Nine years later, Ray left the military with three Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medals with V (for combat valor) and a Purple Heart.
Following boot camp, Ray received infantry training at Camp Pendleton. Then he was off to his first duty assignment guarding some nuclear assets on the East Coast.
A year later he was headed for Iraq.
Ray was less than two months into his tour when he earned his first medal for valor.
"We were on a routine patrol when I noticed a guy acting suspicious. Something didn't seem right so I started watching him.
"I saw him reach into his pocket and he started running toward the last man in the patrol. I raised my rifle and said stop in Arabic. He didn't. I shot him three times in the chest. He stumbled forward and went down. As soon as his hand hit the ground his suicide vest blew up into him and down into the ground."
The suicide bomber wasn't alone.
"It obviously was supposed to be a complex ambush. We started taking fire from the second story of an adjacent building."
A brief firefight ensued, but the ambush had failed.
In Iraq, Ray worked beside the Iraqi army police.
"We found a lot of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and some guys got hit by them."
When his tour was up, Ray was sent back to Pendleton as a combat instructor for the infantry school.
But things were starting to heat up in Afghanistan and six months after returning to the states Ray was volunteering to be a combat replacement.
"The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines were the only unit in Afghanistan at that time and they were very undermanned. When things picked up it picked up in a hurry.
"I went over as a sergeant and finished out my deployment (about five months) with them.
"I would lead patrols at times and was a trained forward observer for mortars and things like that. It was kind of fun. Not a lot of responsibilities. We just went out and picked fights. A lot of short range patrols."
With a second combat tour behind him, Ray returned to the states to teach at the infantry school. He re-enlisted and got orders to return to Afghanistan in 2010. He was assigned to the First Light Armored Recon Battalion as a chief scout or squad leader.
It was tough duty.
They would deploy in four armored vehicles. The six-wheel vehicles were armed with a 25mm Bushmaster gun and carried a crew of three. Four scouts rode in the back of each vehicle.
"The scouts were regular riflemen. Those were my guys. When dismounted we would make up one squad and maneuver as a squad.
"We were in combat almost the whole deployment. (As scouts) we slept outside the wire (out in the field far away from base) almost the whole time. The only time (we returned to base) was to resupply, get ammo, water, fuel. We slept on the ground ... no tents or anything. We were roughing it for sure."
But then came the fateful attack that eventually cost Ray a career in the military.
"We were doing a raid on a Taliban stronghold. It was early morning and we were moving in before the sun came up to conduct the raid at daybreak.
"(The Taliban) had laid an IED belt around their stronghold."
One of the vehicles in Ray's platoon got stuck.
"My vehicle went to pull it out and in doing so it went over an IED and hit both vehicles. I was standing up in the hatch and got thrown out of the vehicle.
"I lost consciousness. When I woke up the sun was starting to come up and I could smell dirt and all I could see was dirt. I immediately began checking myself and everybody to make sure my guys were OK. We started triage and giving first aid and sweeping for other IEDs. An interpreter was killed and the wounded were sent back for medevac."
Despite his condition, Ray went on the raid.
A few hours after the raid, another vehicle got hit and another interpreter was killed. It was also about that time that Ray began throwing up and realized he was in bad shape and was also medevaced.
"I had a class 3 concussion with bleeding on the brain and I had lost some hearing."
He was sent to a base hospital and after "a month or two they let be go back to my squad and finish the 3-4 months left on my deployment."
Back in the states he was told his duty assignments would change.
"I had already re-enlisted and had planned on doing the full thing. They would let me stay in but not in infantry and that's not my thing so I decided to retire early."
He had served nine years.
While going through physical therapy, Ray decided "to start taking better care of myself " and began weightlifting.
"That took on a life of its own and I got into competitive bodybuilding. I still train, but not like I used to."
Though Ray was out of the military he couldn't totally leave the military life behind. He moved to Chicago and began working with other veterans, helping them with financial issues and filing claims. Now he works with a patriotic apparel company called Grunt Style (look it up at grunt style.com) and is moving to San Antonio to help with a firm expansion.
Last summer he was honored by the Chicago White Sox as a Hero of the Game. As his proud father, Steve, and stepmother, Kati, watched from the stands, he took his young stepbrother, Blaine, onto the field with him during the seventh inning stretch.
"They announced me, listed my awards and I got applause from the whole stadium. It sent chills down my spine. It was a pretty euphoric feeling."
Looking back on his tours, Ray sees a brighter future for Iraq, but Afghanistan is another matter.
"I have a lot of hope about that country (Iraq) turning itself around and I still have a lot of hope. Some great people live there and there are a lot of patriots. I met a lot of cool people and when I left I felt good about how the situation was going."
But Afghanistan ...
"It's definitely a third world country. I came across people who thought we were still the Russians. Iraq is way more evolved than Afghanistan. That place is definitely stuck in the stone age."
Looking back on his years in the Marines, Ray said, "I wouldn't change anything about it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."