John Ripley, who served at both Virginia Military Institute and Southern Seminary College in the 1990s, is set to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the closing years of the Vietnam War.
A resolution introduced in January by 9th District Rep. Morgan Griffith authorizing the president to award the medal for “acts of valor during the Vietnam War” passed the U.S. Senate last Tuesday, March 3, after having passed the House of Representatives Feb. 3. It will now be sent on to President Trump.
The award recognizes his actions to slow the advance of North Vietnamese armored columns during the 1972 North Vietnamese Easter Offensive.
Ripley, a Marine captain, was serving as an adviser to a South Vietnamese marine battalion that found itself in the path of the advance. Realizing the Dong Ha Bridge in the battalion’s sector was a key avenue for the advance, he climbed onto the bridge under heavy gunfire, and rigged 500 pounds of explosives in five separate trips, bringing the bridge down.
His actions would be recounted in the book “The Bridge at Dong Ha” written by John Miller, also a former Marine adviser in Vietnam. His actions would also earn him the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for bravery.
According to an article over the weekend in military.com, efforts were made over the years to obtain the Medal of Honor for Ripley, but he would die in 2008 before those efforts would be successful.
Ripley, who rose to the rank of colonel, first came to the Rockbridge area in 1990, serving as professor of naval science and head of the Naval ROTC unit at VMI from August of that year until June 1992. He retired from the Marine Corps in June of 1992 after a 30-year career.
In July, he assumed the post of president of Southern Seminary Junior College, which would change its name to Southern Virginia College during his tenure. He was president until 1996 when the college was acquired by a group of business people with ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served as chancellor briefly before leaving later in the year to become the president of Hargrave Military Academy.
He died at age 69 at his home in Annapolis, Md.
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