In a White House ceremony, President Donald Trump officially awarded Colonel John Ripley ’62, USMC (Ret.), the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War.
“Today, we posthumously award him the highest of all awards, the Congressional Medal of Honor,” President Trump said at the ceremony on Thursday in which he presented the Medal of Honor in a case to Ripley’s son, Tom.
Ripley originally received the Navy Cross after he single handedly destroyed a crucial bridge at Dong Ha. On 2 April 1972, then-Captain Ripley, the senior advisor to the 3rd Vietnamese Marine Battalion, repeatedly put himself in harm’s way to place explosives on the Dong Ha bridge over the Cua Viet River in South Vietnam’s Quang Tri province.
Efforts to upgrade Ripley’s Navy Cross to the Medal of Honor stalled for years. Earlier this year, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan called Ripley’s son, Tom, to meet with him and share the story of Colonel Ripley’s heroics. Phelan, at the orders of the president to evaluate military honors, was impressed and a few days later, the Marine Corps had written an endorsement.
That was followed by Phelan’s and the Secretary of War’s endorsements. Within a couple of weeks, the recommendation was sent to the House Armed Service Committee. Congressman Morgan Griffith, representing Virginia’s Ninth District, sponsored the bill to honor the Radford, Va. native with the nation’s highest military decoration. On 3 March 2026, Congress passed a resolution to recommend Ripley for the Medal of Honor.
During his heroic endeavor in Vietnam, Ripley arm-walked steel girders five times to set explosives while under continuous enemy fire for five hours. The destruction of the bridge blunted a massive offensive by the North Vietnamese. On Easter Sunday, 1972 communist forces crossed the demilitarized zone in a division level mechanized invasion. Thousands of tanks, troops and artillery advanced toward the Dong Ha bridge.
A diorama of Ripley at the Bridge is on display in Memorial Hall. He is the first Naval Academy graduate to be awarded the Medal of Honor since Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale ’47, USN (Ret.), received his on 4 March 1976.
Tom Ripley said his father, who died in 2008, would have wanted to ensure proper credit to those who supported him, trained him and served alongside him. That includes his wife, Moline, fellow advisor Major Jim Smock, and the 300 men of the 3rd Vietnamese Marine Battalion who fought a desperate battle to buy Ripley time. Of those 300 less than 60 would survive the battle.
Tom always believed his father’s service would be recognized with the Medal of Honor.
“You have faith that your country’s going to do the right thing,” he said. “For us, this is really the completion of a circle.”
Ripley is the 73rd Naval Academy’s alumnus to be awarded a Medal of Honor. He was the first Marine to be named a U.S. Naval Academy Distinguished Graduate (2002). Watch our interview with Tom Ripley featured in Shipmate magazine at this link.