Ronald A. Gray - Early Life

Early Life

Gray was born in Cochran, Georgia, but grew up in Liberty City, a public housing project in Miami, Florida. He enlisted at age 18 in 1984, and was assigned to the Target Acquisition Battery, 1-39 Field Artillery Battalion. At the time of his arrest, he was stationed at Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he was a cook assigned to 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. He held the rank of specialist (E-4).

During his court-martial, his mother Lizzie Hurd and sister testified that he had been abused by his stepfather as a child. Colonel David Armitage, a military forensic psychiatrist, also testified that in Gray's early life, he had experienced:

fairly substantial socioeconomic deprivation, multiple male figures in the home, multiple physical moves, living in substandard poverty conditions, circumstances where the electric lights were turned out by the electric company because bills were not paid. He had a step-parent at one time who was extremely abusive to his mother and abusive to himself, using belts on him to the point of inflicting injury, drawing blood.