Remembering Ray

Only once has my reaction been of disbelief: No, not him. It can’t be. Not Ray Mendoza. Mine was a common reaction. A condolence website for his family is filled with expressions of incredulity. “He was a man we all thought to be bullet-proof,” Capt. John Griffin said in his eulogy at Mendoza’s funeral at a Catholic church in Oceanside.

At 6 feet 2 and 225 pounds, Mendoza had been a star wrestler at Ohio State in the 1990s and, as a Marine, an alternate on the 1996 Olympic team. His overtime victory over a reigning…