Interment: Lone Mountain Cemetery, Carson City, NV

Taps Memorial Article:

John L. Raible  1961

Cullum No. 23788-1961 | May 21, 2015 | Died in Carson City, NV

Interred in Lone Mountain Cemetery, Carson City, NV

John Louis “Jack” Raible was born in Illinois on November 29, 1937. Early in his life the family moved to Southern California. He became interested in West Point while watching the Army-Navy Game as a student at Pasadena High School. After two years marking time at Pasadena City College as a first alternate bridesmaid, Jack finally received a principal appointment and went down the coast to the San Diego Naval Base to take the entrance examinations. In June 1957 he boarded a train in Pasadena for New York, then hopped on a boat to West Point, and—in his words—enjoyed his “last dinner as a free man” at the Thayer Hotel on July 1.

As a cadet in Company H-1, Jack was known as one of the irrepressible characters of the class, possessed of a sly sense of humor. He very quickly acquired the affectionate nickname “Rabbit.” Appropriately for his nickname, Jack lettered (with a star) in cross country and was on the Track Team for three years. His cadet career, however, was marked by a continuous series of running battles with various academic departments. Some of Jack’s difficulties with the academic departments can be explained by his preference for reading the works of the Beat poets and other poets such as Dylan Thomas when he might have been studying the intricacies of Russian grammar or the details of the battle of Chickamauga. He was finally able to declare victory over the Dean on the very last day of the academic year on the very last examination in military art and engineering (turn-out edition). When he left the examination room and went to lunch formation, he marked his triumph by ceremoniously breaking his red-and-blue pencil in half and tossing the pieces in to the cheering company ranks.

In March 1962, three days before departing Southern California for Fort Richardson, AK, he married Linda, with whom he would have a happy marriage of mutual devotion for 53 years. Jack left the Army after a tour in the Infantry at Fort Richardson, and he and Linda remained in Alaska. Life in rural Alaska in the mid-60s was still on the primitive side: many of the roads were gravel or unpaved, fresh food had to be flown in, and there was no live TV. In the aftermath of a large earthquake in Alaska, Jack and Linda finally decided to return to Jack’s Southern California roots. First, however, they took a three-month circumnavigation of the lower 48, a trip that hooked them on the RV lifestyle.

After they returned to Southern California, Jack became a teacher in the Los Angeles County School District. In 1971 Jack and Linda decided to leave the crowds and the smog of LA and seek a more bucolic setting. They found that setting in Carson City, NV. Jack began teaching in the local school district, and Linda brought her legal skills to the Office of the Attorney General and later to four Nevada Supreme Court justices. Along the way Jack earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Nevada, Reno and became a staunch UNR football fan. Jack had played the tuba in the marching band at Pasadena City College (he was very proud that he had marched in the Rose Parade), and he and Linda made special efforts, both at home and on the road, to go to see any jazz band that featured a tuba.

After retiring from the school district in his mid-40s, Jack struck out in a completely different direction. He went to school to become certified as an appraiser of mining properties and in 1983 went to work for the Nevada Department of Taxation. He eventually became responsible for appraisal of all of the state’s mining properties. This job, which took him to mines all over the state and into contact with some unforgettable desert mining characters, was by far his favorite. After he retired in 1997 and Linda retired in 1998, they took up their peripatetic RV lifestyle even more intensively. By 2011, Jack figured that they had visited almost every national park and monument west of the Mississippi. One of their favorite RV destinations was Santa Cruz, CA for its many beaches.

After bravely battling leukemia for several years, Jack Raible died of a massive heart attack on May 21, 2015 at age 77. He is buried in Lone Mountain Cemetery in Carson City. Although he is gone, his hallmarks of integrity and perseverance, and above all his love for and devotion to Linda, ensure that his spirit lives on. In the words of one of his favorite poets, Dylan Thomas:

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

Jack requested that he be buried in shorts and a Santa Cruz tee shirt. He also requested that he be buried with his West Point diploma.

Well Done, Rabbit. Be Thou at Peace.