Marines bid farewell to one of their heroes

With moist eyes, young midshipmen and hardened old warriors alike, stood at attention yesterday as the casket of Vietnam War hero retired Marine Col. John Walter Ripley was taken from the Naval Academy Chapel.

One old comrade, who stood with Col. Ripley against a large Communist force on Easter Sunday 1972, flew in from California for the funeral Mass and final commendation.

"Col. Ripley worked as my adviser for two years," retired Vietnamese Marine Corps Lt. Col. Le Ba Binh said through a translator during an interview. "He was a genuine guy, very nice, very well spoken. It hit me hard when I heard" about his death.

Col. Binh, who commanded a Vietnamese battalion, said that Col. Ripley liked to talk about history, and when they served together, the two of them often would analyze historical battles to "come up with ways to fight the enemy."

"He also acted as a friend, and showed me how to move (troops) while under heavy enemy fire," Col. Binh said.

Col. Ripley, who died last week at age 69, graduated from the Naval Academy in 1962. He lived in Annapolis.

Col. Ripley was assigned as a military adviser in 1972, when the United States was trying to shift onto the South Vietnamese more responsibility for conducting the war.

While an "adviser," he virtually single-handedly stalled an invading column of communist tanks by blowing up the bridge at the town of Dong Ha, South Vietnam.

Col. Ripley and a group of 600 South Vietnamese were ordered to stop the enemy force, which consisted of about 20,000 soldiers and about 200 tanks.

Determined to destroy the bridge even though he was under heavy fire, Col. Ripley swung beneath the structure and advanced by walking with his hands.

He worked for three hours, going back and forth to carry ordnance, until he had packed the bridge's steel beams with 500 pounds of explosives, he said in a 2006 interview with The Capital.

He said his orders were "Hold and die."

Col. Ripley crimped detonator caps onto the primer cord by biting them, and one mishap would have blown his head off.

Col. Ripley said the assignment of destroying the bridge became simpler after he realized he most likely was going to die, no matter what he did, and he may as well focus on the mission.

That 1972 mission was not Col. Ripley's first tour of duty in Vietnam, nor his first taste of combat. Some veterans of his first tour, in 1967, were at the graveside, wearing red baseball caps with "Ripley's Raiders" emblazoned on them.

They said they served with Col. Ripley at places along the demilitarized zone, such as the Rockpile, Highway 9 and Khe Sanh.

"We would have followed him anywhere," said Russ Jewett, a Fort Bragg, Calif., resident who served as a Navy medic with Col. Ripley's company.

Col. Ripley's radio operator from his first tour also attended yesterday's funeral.

He said, as he was leaving the cemetery, that Col. Ripley always liked being in the thick of things, and was the kind of officer who "led from the front."

"I thought, man, this guy is going to get me killed," said Jesse G. Torres, of Hillsborough, N.C. "He was always on the go, and wherever he was, I was there; he never stopped.

"It was the kind of fighting where the buttons on your jacket were too big - you couldn't get close enough to the ground," Mr. Torres said.

The nation's top Marine, Commandant Gen. James T. Conway, told the mourners who packed into the academy chapel about Col. Ripley's love of history.

Gen. Conway recalled telling Col. Ripley, a native Virginian, that he was born too late, and if he had been with the South during the Civil War, Gen. U.S. Grant would have been unable to invade.

"'I might not have stopped him, but I believe I could have slowed him down,'" Col. Ripley told Gen. Conway.

Gen. Conway also recalled Col. Ripley saying, "'There are sheep and their are wolves, and in the end, the wolves always win.'"

Col. Ripley is survived by his wife, Moline B. Ripley, 67; three sons, Stephen Ripley, 43, Thomas Ripley, 38, and John Ripley, 35; a daughter, Mary Ripley, 39; and eight grandchildren.

Col. Ripley's awards include the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, two Legions of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals with Combat "V," the Purple Heart, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, the South Vietnamese Army Distinguished Service Order, and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Gold Star.

Some veterans have said that Col. Ripley should have been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest recognition for valor, but his heroic deeds could not be suitably documented because they were not witnessed by Americans.

Still, Col. Ripley's heroic feat is taught to Naval Academy midshipmen, and he has been memorialized with a large diorama "Ripley at the Bridge," which is displayed in the Naval Academy's Memorial Hall.

A future Marine, Midshipman 4th Class Roger Willis, of Tacoma, Wash., was one of hundreds of midshipmen who attended the funeral and walked to the cemetery.

"There is a link in the chain, the class that graduated 50 years earlier (1962) was Col. Ripley's class," said Midshipman Willis, a freshman who will graduate in 2012 and said he hopes to become a Marine tank commander.

"I have always wanted to be a Marine, and people like Col. Ripley confirm that this is what I want to do."