The Richmond Council of the Navy League celebrated the Nov. 10 birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps a few days early yesterday with a rousing speech from one of its most decorated members.Col. John W. Ripley, awarded the Navy Cross and other medals for heroism during the war in Vietnam, talked to about 160 people at the Willow Oaks County Club about toughness, eadership and team work.
Though retired, he made it clear, "Once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine."
Ripley, a native of Radford, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962. According to the Navy League, he shares the distinction with one other Marine of having the most combat xperience in the Corps.
In Vietnam, he rescued the crew of one downed helicopter by loading them into another helicopter. On Easter 1972, he swung hand-to-hand under a bridge at Dong Ha for several hours packing the span's steel beams with 500 pounds of explosives so it could be blown up, denying the enemy a way across the river.
"The cheapest way to kill the enemy is to send a Marine with a rifle," Ripley told the appreciative crowd. The Marine, he said, gives the United States the best return on defense dollars.
"Austerity has been a way of life in the Marine Corps. Indeed, it is a religion to us, to be the leanest of services."
Noting the current film about the Corps' flag raising on Iwo Jima, "Flags of Our Fathers," Ripley pointed out that one of the six flag raisers was a U.S. Navy corpsman. At Iwo Jima, said Ripley, he Marines suffered 25,000 casualties out of a force of 75,000. Among them were 300 Navy corpsmen, he said.
Iwo Jima, he said, was the only battle in the history of the Corps where the Marines suffered more casualties than the enemy. "That's because we ran out of enemy," he said, prompting aughter.
"I learned how to adapt well in conditions of misery, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, short rations, grief of loss, staggering heat, biting cold, sustained filth," he said.
Ripley, former president of Southern Virginia College in Buena Vista and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, is a former director of the Marine Corps History and Museums Division.
By Frank Green
The Richmond Times-Dispatch
1 comment:
I served under this man while with the 1st of 2nd. I personally witnessed him have two live grenades thrown about 25ft in front of him without protection of any kind.
When the first grenade went off a piece of something cut his face slightly. Disregarding the pleas of coreman and other officers he stood there in the open while another grenade was tossed and went off right in front of him. He had to give a direct order to a Lt. to toss it just before telling him to shut up.
I was in the observation hole with a 2nd Lt. who exasperatedly said "the man is crazy". Well he wasn't crazy he just knew his hand grenades!
Col. Ripley was demonstrating the blast patterns of grenades and showing us that they had a limited kill zone. His reasons for doing this was to settle our fears and misconceptions about grenades.
This man is a born warrior ordained by God out of his mother womb. He the kind of man who gives the substance to legend.
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