Ira Richards Obituary

RICHARDS, JR., Ira Colonel Ira Bertram Ric Richards, Jr., U.S. Army, Retired, who served his country with distinction, died peacefully after a several month decline in health at his home in Lady's Island, Beaufort, SC, on the afternoon of July 17th. Ric Richards was born in Bosque County, Texas, on January 31, 1915, the second oldest of seven children of Hattie Elizabeth Richards and Ira B. Richards, Sr. At 15, he graduated from high school in Douglas, Arizona, but was unable to enter university until he was 20 due to his father's poor health and the Depression. He then entered the University of Arizona in Tucson where he majored in journalism and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1939. He was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps at university and received an honor graduate commission in the Army as a First Lieutenant in the Eighth Cavalry at Fort Bliss, Texas in 1939. At Fort Bliss he met and courted Ellen Margaret Batchelor, the beautiful youngest daughter of Lt. Col. Vance Batchelor and Beatrice Reed Batchelor. They were married January 31, 1942. As the war progressed in Europe, Ric was assigned to a tank destroyer battalion at Fort Hood, Texas. Ric was on General Omar Bradley's staff at the Normandy invasion and served under General Bradley as an operations officer for the remainder of the war. He quickly advanced to the rank of Lt. Colonel. For his service in the war he was awarded the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, the French Croix de Guerre, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, and the European Theater Ribbon with five stars. After the war, Ric was sent by the Army to study political science and international relations at the University of Michigan and Princeton University where he completed a Masters degree in International Studies in 1949. The Army then sent Ric to the Armed Forces Staff College, at Norfolk, Virginia and then to the special US Army language school in Monterey California to study Russian language and other facets of life in the USSR. He was then chosen as an Assistant Army Attache in Moscow. After an additional year of study and preparation at the Pentagon, Colonel Richards and his family went to Moscow where they lived at the American Embassy from 1954 to 1956. After Moscow, Ric was assigned to the U.S. Armored School and Training Center at Fort Knox, Kentucky from 1956 to 1960. There he commanded the First Armored Training Brigade and later was appointed to the Armored School as Director of the Command and Staff Department. From Fort Knox, Colonel Richards was assigned to the Eurasian Division at the Pentagon for two years. He then attended the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, PA, and after graduation he was ordered to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) at the State Department. He retired from the Army in 1965 after 26 years service and continued to work at the ACDA where he played an important role in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I & II) negotiations in Helsinki and Geneva in the late 1960s and early 70s between the United States and the Soviet Union. He retired from ACDA in 1974 at the highest grade in the civil service as acting Assistant Director. Ric and Ellen then moved from McLean to Linden, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge where they lived for the next 16 years. Having attended the Unitarian Church throughout their married life, they helped organize the Unitarian Universalist fellowship of the Shenandoah Valley in Winchester, Virginia. In 1989 they moved to Beaufort where they resided until Colonel Richards' demise. He is survived by his devoted wife and companion of 65 years, Ellen Batchelor Richards, two sons, Ira B. Richards, III, and wife Valeria, of Linden, VA, and Dr. Jeffrey K. Richards and wife Carol, of Charleston, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, two brothers, James Finley Richards of Vail, Arizona, and William G. Richards of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and two sisters, Lorena Pendleton and Elizabeth Burgess, both of Las Cruces. He was predeceased by his son David Finley Richards who died in 1961 at 16 years of age. A memorial service will be held at the Copeland Funeral Home Chapel in Beaufort, SC at 10am Friday, July 27th. Internment will be at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors at a later date. In lieu of flowers memorial contributions may be made to Carolina Hospice. Visit our guestbook at www.charleston.net/deaths.