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thedrifter
01-03-09, 06:38 AM
He Held Back An Entire Army
Paul Katzeff
Fri Jan 2, 5:55 pm ET

John Ripley's relationship with the Marines was love at first sight.

His initial glimpse of the Corps came when he was kid, hawking newspapers on a train. His father was a manager for the railroad.

"One day he sold papers to soldiers who were returning from World War II," said Stephen Ripley, 43, the eldest of John Ripley's four children. "Some Marines gave him a 50-cent tip for papers that cost 10 cents each. He also saw their swagger. He never forgot that."

After graduating from Radford (Va.) High School in 1957, he enlisted -- and that commitment paid off for the Corps.

Ripley is best remembered for a particular feat during the 1972 Easter Offensive of the Vietnam War.

With Rambo-esque daring under fire, Ripley blew up a key river bridge, stopping a column of communist tanks trying to cross during a ferocious battle.

Exploits like that earned him a reputation as the Marine's Marine.

Among his many medals, Ripley was decorated with the Navy Cross and Silver Star for his service in the Vietnam War.

He later served the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was regimental commander at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Ripley also earned the Quad Body distinction. That goes to the few service members who complete fierce training for the Army Rangers, Marine reconnaissance, Army Airborne and Britain's royal marines.

Ripley remains the only Marine in the Army's Ranger Hall of Fame.

Ripley served as director of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division and the Marine Corps Historical Center. In 2006, the Naval Academy prep school named its new dormitory Ripley Hall.

He retired from active duty in 1992 as a colonel and died from liver illness on Oct. 28 at age 69.

Solid Service

John Ripley had a polished military pedigree. Ripleys had served as far back as the Revolutionary War, according to the Associated Press. Ancestors served on both sides of the Civil War, says John Grider Miller, whose book "Bridge at Dong Ha" chronicles Ripley's Vietnam heroics.

After Ripley enlisted in the Marines, his father pushed him to enroll in the Naval Academy.

Ripley's lackluster high school record hurt. So he aimed to spend one year at the academy prep school in Newport, R.I. Annapolis itself had class positions open for enlisted sailors and Marines. To win one, he had to shine on an entrance exam for the prep school.

"My grandfather locked Dad in his room at home for two weeks," Stephen Ripley said. "Granddad made him study 16 hours a day."

When the Annapolis, Md., school accepted Ripley, Stephen said, "It was one of those life-altering events. It reinforced the value of hard work and perseverance."

Ripley grew up in a household that had little money. "Things didn't come easy," Stephen told IBD. "Dad learned he had to work for whatever he got."

It was a lesson Ripley took to heart. In his yearbook from the Naval Academy prep school, he wrote in ink under the name of anyone who dropped out, "QUIT."

"He had little respect for anyone who quit anything," Stephen said.

Ripley also taught his children never to squander the things they worked hard to get.

That included family vacations. "We usually went to Virginia Beach," Stephen said. "Like most military families, we moved a lot. But the beach was about a four-hour drive from where we usually lived. And even when we arrived at 10 o'clock at night, Dad made us all jump in the ocean right away for a swim. He told us not to take a good thing for granted."

Ripley's drab high school grades weren't due to a lack of smarts. "He just wasn't motivated," Miller said. "But he loved the military. It meant something to him. He absorbed everything they threw at him."

He polished parachuting in airborne school. He learned to live off the land in Ranger training, honing survival in the swamps of Florida and Georgia. He made himself invisible in Marine recon. And the royal marines taught him demolition.

"From his exposure to railroads as a kid, he also learned the tricks of taking down a bridge," Miller said.

On Easter Sunday, April 2, 1972, Capt. Ripley was an adviser to a South Vietnamese marine unit.

Dong Ha Bridge spanned the Cua Viet River -- and 20,000 North Vietnamese troops with 200 tanks were rushing to cross it and invade the South. Standing between them and exposed Quang Tri province were only 600 South Vietnamese troops.

And Ripley.

The only hope was to cut the bridge. Ripley once said his orders were simple: "Hold or die."

With hopes of holding and living, the captain planned to place explosives where they could knock steel girders from their piers. That meant getting beneath the bridge. Like a trapeze artist in the circus, he began to hand-walk under the bridge.

Every time his legs swung low, enemy soldiers fired at his limbs. Soon he was the bull's-eye in a maelstrom of bullets. Bleeding, he nearly passed out several times.

If he fell, he would hit churning water 50 feet below. The bridge spanned more than 500 feet.

"Ripley focused on the segment closest to the south shore," Miller said. "All he had to do was bring down one segment."

Ripley rigged satchels with 500 pounds of TNT and C4 explosive.

"I used my teeth to crimp (each) detonator and thus pinch it into place on the fuse," he told the Marine Corps Times last June. "I crimped it with my teeth while the detonator was halfway down my throat."

The work took three hours. Ripley was sure he would be killed. He lit one fuse while hand-walking under the bridge. Making his way to shore, he tried to detonate the explosives with an old-fashioned twist box.

But when he turned the crank, nothing happened.

Dodging bullets, Ripley ran to a jeep that had been blown up during the firefight. He took its battery and ran it back to the detonator wires. He wrapped a wire around each battery terminal, but still nothing.

Suddenly, the bridge exploded. Apparently his fire fuse had worked.

Facing The Fire

Only weeks earlier, Ripley's derring-do had saved several of his comrades' lives.

A helicopter ferrying Ripley and fellow Marines into action was shot down. They crashed near a chopper that was downed a week earlier.

Ripley carried the wounded from his flight to the other copter, which the pilot was able to fly. But the damaged aircraft seemingly could only carry a limited load.

Wounded, Ripley stayed behind. According to the Marines' Force Recon veterans' online publication, he held off the enemy long enough to extinguish the fire aboard the copter in which he had just crashed. Then he repaired it so it could be flown to safety. "The Marines loved Ripley," said Miller, "because he embodied everything they teach."

Ellie