Ray Griffin was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant the Army in 1941 through the University of Nebraska Lincoln ROTC program. As a First Lieutenant, he commanded the 712th Tank Battalion, 90th Infantry Division. A public Square named after him in Leiler, Luxembourg, a town that his unit liberated under his command. After leaving the Army, he joined the Soil Conservation Service, where he worked until his retirement in 1982. At the time of his death, he was the mayor of Aurora, Nebraska.