Background
Ralph grew up in Frederick, Maryland where he attended parochial and public schools. After that, he joined the U.S. Air Force and served one year in Vietnam. He subsequently attended and received an Associates of Arts Degree from the Hawaii Campus of the U.S. International University. While there, he worked as a criminal investigator for the first Maui Deputy Public Defender. He then attended the University of California at Berkeley where he graduated with Honors. He also worked as a Parole Aide for the California Youth Authority. Three years later he graduated from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was active in legally assisting Korean and Vietnam war veterans as part of Harvard Law School's Committee on Military Justice. As a law student, he testified before Congress on the organization's work before a Select Committee of the House Committee of Veterans Affairs.
