Marine Captain John Ripley earned the Navy Cross on this day in 1972, when he swung hand-over-hand under the Dong Ha Bridge, setting charges to blow the span and block a North Vietnamese column during the Easter Offensive. He carried crimping charges in his teeth and dodged enemy fire to set 500 pounds of explosives. A legend in the Marine Corps, all Americans should honor and remember him. 

The story of Ripley evokes that of Publius Horatius Cocles at the Pons Sublicius bridge, recounted by Livy and immortalized in Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.

“Then out spake brave Horatius,
⁠The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
⁠Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
⁠Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
⁠And the temples of his gods.”

There is diorama of Ripley at Dong Ha at the Naval Academy. After enlisting the Marine Corps, Ripley earned a spot at the Academy, graduating in 1962 and joined the Fleet Marine Force as a platoon commander and then a  Force Recon Marine, deploying to Vietnam in 1965. He then became a company commander in Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, where he was wounded, though he returned to command to finish his tour. He earned the Silver Star during that tour in Vietnam, for exposing himself to North Vietnamese fire and directing air and artillery when his company was ambushed.

After his first tour in Vietnam, Ripley served as an exchange officer in the Royal Marines. He attended four of the toughest schools in the military – Ranger School, Marine Reconnaissance training, Underwater Demolition Team training and Britain’s Royal Marines Commandos training. Ripley then returned to Vietnam in 1972 as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Marines, in which capacity he fought on Easter Sunday, 1972 at Dong Ha.

Colonel Ripley had a long Marine Corps career as well as many incredible leadership experiences after his active duty. Please honor and remember him.