When we got home, we heard that Col. John Ripley, a Marine, had died.
Col. Ripley is famous for an extraordinary act of bravery in the Vietnam War. It happened at the Dong Ha Bridge on Easter Sunday, 1972. At the time, he was a young captain of Marines. Capt. Ripley climbed under the bridge, in full view of the North Vietnamese and under heavy fire. Despite the danger, he carefully placed explosives, swinging arm-over-arm, like a trapeze artist. For this, he was awarded the Navy Cross.
There is a diorama of “Ripley at the Bridge” at the Naval Academy. Col. Ripley was a member of the Class of 1962.
Here is how I met Col. Ripley: In the spring of 2001 our son, Andrew, a midshipman in his third year at the Naval Academy, phoned home. He asked, Mom, do you mind if I don’t come home this summer?
Why? I asked.
Andrew explained that he had a chance to do a history internship at the Marine Corps History Division, but he also had signed up for summer training at Quantico with the Marine Corps, as well as a language institute in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The only way to squeeze in all these programs would be to not come home and to be one week late returning to the Academy.
Go for it, I said.
All was not lost. Andrew stopped off in California en route from Mexico to Washington, D.C., where he began his history internship with the director of the USMC History Division, the legendary Col. John Ripley.
Col. Ripley took care of the late return to the Academy with something called a “chit.” He also suggested research into Andrew’s father’s war record. This involved a bunch of dusty, uncataloged boxes of faded Force Recon patrol reports.
