John Walter Ripley
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps
John Walter Ripley was born on 29 June in Radford, VA. Ripley joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school graduation and was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy a year later. He graduated and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in His initial duty was aboard the USS Independence.
In , he was assigned to the Second Force Reconnaissance Company, and deployed for his first tour in Vietnam. He commanded Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, and was wounded in combat. Captain Ripley gained his place in Marine Corps legend on Easter Sunday, 2 April when, for three hours, he crawled back and forth under enemy fire placing crates containing pounds of TNT on the I-beams under the Dong Ha bridge. He then ran a fuse several hundred feet in length, and blew up the bridge. His actions bottled-up 20, North Vietnamese troops, blunted the Easter Offensive, and earned him the Navy Cross.
He was the subject of John Grider Miller's book "The Bridge at Dong Ha" and is honored at the Naval Academy with a diorama called "Ripley at the Bridge." After Vietnam, Ripley commanded NROTC detachments at Oregon State and VMI, was an Exchange
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting a Gold Star in lieu of a Second Award of the Legion of Merit to Colonel John Walter Ripley (MCSN: /), United States Marine Corps, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as Commanding Officer, Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) Unit, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia from July through June Through his energetic initiative, superb managerial skills, and dedicated focus on mission accomplishment, Colonel Ripley was responsible for the unit becoming one of the top NROTC units in the country. Using his foresight, innovations, and outstanding leadership, he developed and instituted the only Operational Leadership Naval Science course taught to Marine Option NROTC students which placed the Unit as one of the top producers in the Nation for the Nuclear Power Program with an accession rte of 33 percent above requirements and a ten percent increase in student academic grade point average performance. In addition to his regular duties, Colonel Ripley served on the Academic Board, Admissions Committee, and the Le
Colonel John Walter Ripley
U.S. Marine Corps
Colonel John Ripley is considered a legendary figure among the pantheon of U.S. Marine Corps combat warriors. While his Marine Corps career spanned years, during which he held many commands, he is perhaps best known for his actions as a Military Advisor in Vietnam during the Easter Offensive.
Then, Captain Ripley, while serving with a regiment of South Vietnamese Marines, single-handedly held off an invasion of two North Vietnamese Communist divisions at Dong Ha, the most northern provincial capital closest to the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam. An estimated 20, North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regulars, supported by tanks and heavy artillery, poured across the DMZ on March 30, , as part of three-prong invasion the Communists hoped would result in the capitulation of the South Vietnamese government and an end to the Vietnam War.
Nearly all U.S. combat units had already been withdrawn from Vietnam by , leaving only a handful of U.S. Military Advisors, supported by American air-power off-shore, to assist the South Vietnamese in the face of the onslaught of more than , Communist invaders country-wide.
Capt. Ripley, whose first
On Easter Sunday, April 2nd, , Marine Corps Captain John Ripley was embedded in a small South Vietnamese village on the southern bank of the Cua Viet River. The important crossroads town was a few miles south of the front lines, and Ripley was a senior American military officer chilling with about South Vietnamese Marines. His mission was pretty basic: hang back, get these guys trained and ready for action, and then await further orders.
So you can probably imagine Captain Ripley's surprise when he looked out across the Cua Viet River that morning and saw an entire full-strength North Vietnamese Army armored division assembling to attack. Twenty thousand battle-hardened asskickers with AKs, RPGs, and 81mm mortars. Two hundred brand-ass-new Soviet T main battle tanks. Armored personnel carriers. Anti-aircraft trucks. Friggin' pickup trucks with machine guns mounted in the bed.
And the only thing standing preventing this armor-plated face-smashing juggernaut and the complete epic annihilation of all Democracy in Quang Tri Province was a meter-long bridge made of solid concrete and steel.
Gunshots, mortar fire,
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