This Military Service Page was created/owned by
SSgt Scott MacQuarrie (Mac)
to remember
Marine Col John Ripley.
If you knew or served with this Marine and have additional information or photos to support this Page, please leave a message for the Page Administrator(s) HERE.
This week marks 52 years since one Marine stopped 20,000 North Vietnamese troops and 200 enemy tanks by climbing hand-over-hand beneath a major bridge to plant explosives.
In the spring of 1972, the North Vietnamese Army launched the so-called Easter Offensive, its largest attack of the war and the first major assault since the Tet Offensive four years earlier. On April 2, the communist forces reached the Dong Ha Bridge over the Cua Viet River in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam.
Marine Capt. John Walter Ripley, the Senior Advisor to the 3rd Vietnamese Marine Battalion, was on the south side of the bridge. His orders were blunt, “Hold and die.”
