Medal of Honor Monday

It’s getting hard to keep up with the flurry of valor decorations being awarded/upgraded lately. I’m not complaining, as the people being honored have, in almost all cases, been very long, long overdue. I hope to report on many more of these award upgrades.

As Lmn0351 noted in my Valor Friday piece last week, the latest breaking news is that John Ripley will have his Navy Cross upgraded to a Medal of Honor. Four years ago Lmn0351 mentioned Ripley by name in an unrelated post about other men being authorized such award upgrades, which speaks to the legendary status of Ripley within the Corps.

Colonel John Ripley

Unfortunately, Colonel Ripley passed away in 2008, so the award will be received by his next-of-kin. Which sounds like his son, who was also a Marine. So too were most other men in the family, and his grandson is finishing his final year at Annapolis as we speak.

You’ll recall the story of Ripley at the Bridge, when I featured him on a Valor Friday article more than two years ago. The Recon Marine is a legend within the Corps for his hanging off a bridge in Vietnam, while under sustained direct enemy fire, to quite literally prime the bridge’s charges while dangling there by the other hand.

Ripley at the Bridge

Military.com has the story;

More than 50 years after he hung beneath a bridge under enemy fire to stop a North Vietnamese armored invasion, the heroic actions of John Ripley are set to be recognized with the nation’s highest award for valor.

As North Vietnamese tanks massed on the far side of the river in 1972, Ripley climbed onto the Dong Ha Bridge carrying explosives — knowing that if the bridge stood, the invasion could roll south.

During the opening days of the Easter Offensive, Ripley hung from the steel girders of the Dong Ha Bridge in the northern part of South Vietnam, hauling hundreds of pounds of explosives across the structure and rigging them by hand as enemy forces advanced.

When the charges detonated, the bridge collapsed into the river below, halting a massive North Vietnamese armored advance and buying critical time for South Vietnamese and U.S. forces to respond.

Now, more than five decades later, Ripley’s extraordinary act of courage has been formally approved by the Senate, through special legislation, for the Medal of Honor.

In an exclusive interview with Military.com, Ripley’s son, Tom Ripley (also a Marine), described the moment as both deeply emotional and long anticipated.

“It’s kind of surreal for my family,” he said. “I’ve spent my entire life watching this play out. And now suddenly we’re at this moment.”

For generations of Marines, the story of Ripley hanging beneath a bridge while rigging explosives under enemy fire has become legendary, a moment that captures Ripley’s leadership philosophy: Mission first, Marines always.

There’s lots more at the source.

Other recent MoH news includes that the Senate (3 March 2026) has moved forward legislation authorizing Major James Capers (he was the Marine officer featured in USMC recruiting posters in the 80s). H.R.3377 has now passed both the House and Senate, and will be moving to the President’s desk. This legislation only authorizes Capers’ Silver Star to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. It removes the statute of limitations on the award, but the usual bureaucratic BS for the award still applies, and any of the powers that be at the various levels within the Pentagon could still deny the upgrade.

I still await such progress on the award upgrade for Air Force Colonel Philip Conran. The most recent news I can find is that his name was specified in a House-passed bill on 30 September last year, but it was apparently not taken up by the Senate.

Category: Marines, Medal of Honor, Valor, Vietnam