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JOSEPH RALSTON

1 March 1996 - 29 February 2000

oseph Ralston was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, on 4 November

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1943 and spent his early childhood in Fairview, Kentucky. He moved to Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, when he was eleven and graduated from Norwood High School. Ralston worked his way through Miami University of Ohio, receiving a bachelor of arts in chemistry in June 1965. A distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Regular Air Force that July.

Following pilot and combat crew training and promotion to first lieutenant in January 1967, Ralston served as an F-105 fighter pilot with tactical fighter squadrons based at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, from April 1967 until October 1969. During that time Lieutenant Ralston flew missions over Southeast Asia out of Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, and deployed to Korea in response to North Korea's seizure of the USS Pueblo. He was promoted to captain in July 1968. Captain Ralston returned to Southeast Asia in 1970 as an F-105 Wild Weasel pilot with the 354th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying out of Takhli Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, to counter North Vietnamese antiaircraft missile defense. During his two tours in Southeast Asia, Ralston flew 147 combat missions over Laos and North Vietnam and received four awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross. His accomplishments included coordinating the rescue of a downed crew while under prolonged hostile fire. On his return to the United States in October 1970, Ralston became a Wild Weasel instructor pilot with the 66th Fighter Weapons Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.

General Joseph Ralston

United States Air Force

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worth, Kansas. In 1976 he also received a master's degree in personnel management from Central Michigan University.

In his first assignment at the Pentagon, Ralston spent the next three years on the Air Staff as a tactical systems requirements officer and program manager in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research, Development, and Acquisition, where he was part of the original team overseeing development of Stealth technology. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in April 1978. In July 1979 he moved to Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, as Operations Officer of the 68th Tactical Fighter Squadron and later assumed command of

the squadron. Lieutenant Colonel Ralston returned to Headquarters Tactical Air Command in July 1980 as Special Assistant and then Executive Officer to the Commander. Promoted to colonel in June 1981, he was selected to attend the National War College at Fort McNair, Washington, DC, during 1983-1984.

The next dozen years saw him selected for increasingly important positions in requirements and acquisition as well as for significant command assignments. After graduating from the National War College, Colonel Ralston returned to the Air Staff, where, as Special Assistant for Low Observable Technology in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff

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Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, responsible for training and equipping all Air Force, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve combat wings and squadrons in the United States and Panama. He received his fourth star in July.

General Ralston became the fourth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 1 March 1996. He was the first Vice Chairman to serve a substantial portion of his tenure with more than one Chairman: nineteen months with General John M. Shalikashvili, USA, and twenty-nine months with General

Henry H. Shelton, USA. When General Ralston became Vice Chairman, General Shalikashvili and he agreed that Ralston would function as Shalikashvili's deputy, fully participating in all aspects of the Chairman's day-today activities, in addition to carrying out his specific responsibilities as Vice Chairman. Shalikashvili came to regard Ralston as his "most trusted adviser." Shelton and Ralston had an association of many years, which enabled them to work closely together from the beginning of Shelton's chairmanship and to continue the approach to sharing responsibilities

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