Brigadier General Ralph Hospital was born January 27, 1891, in Washington, D.C. He was commissioned in November 1913 as a Field Artillery officer and saw service with the 15th Cavalry Regiment during the Mexican Campaign in Douglas, Arizona and Sierra Blanca, Texas. He served as an Artillery officer in France during World War I and then took an instructor job at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York until the mid-1920s. Major Hospital served with the 15th Field Artillery Regiment during its period under the Hawaiian Division in 1925, and returned to the states in 1926 to attend Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was a Distinguished Graduate and soon returned to Ithaca to instruct ROTC again.