D Company Loss — Death of SP4 Terry Allen Rippy, Explosive Device, April 22, 1966

April 22, 1966 — D Company loses a man at An Khe

Research page — sparse. Confirmed: SP4 Terry Allen Rippy, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry, was killed by an explosive device on April 22, 1966. The official record classifies the death as hostile, died outright. He was 23 years old and had served 144 days. The precise location and circumstances are not yet confirmed from primary sources.

On April 22, 1966, SP4 Terry Allen Rippy — D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry — was killed by an explosive device in the days following the battalion's return from the western highlands. He was 23 years old. His name is on the Wall at Panel 6E, Line 128.

Where the battalion had just been

The month before Rippy's death had taken D Company across the length of the II Corps highlands. Operation Lincoln (25 March–8 April) was a search-and-destroy in Pleiku Province; 2/8 Cavalry worked forward LZs across the Chu Pong area — LZ Typhus (YA855198), LZ Boil (YA950255), LZ Pox (YA975291), and LZ Wool (YV856962, the battalion CP during the final phase). D Company, with the battalion CP, trucked to Oasis from LZ Pox on March 31 as the brigade repositioned.

Operation Mosby I followed immediately: a two-brigade reconnaissance-in-force into Pleiku and Kontum Provinces along the Cambodian border, running 11–17 April. 2/8 Cavalry assaulted into LZ Amy (YA693474) and LZ Kim (YA663478) on April 11, the operation's first day. The reconnaissance turned up little enemy contact — the country along the border was largely empty — and on 16–17 April the 1st Brigade was airlifted back to An Khe in thirty-seven C-130 sorties. By the evening of the 17th, D Company was back at Camp Radcliff (An Khe, Binh Dinh Province).

April 22 — five days later

Rippy was killed five days after that return. The official record is clear on the mechanism: explosive device, hostile, died outright. What it does not settle is the exact place. The An Khe TAOR was itself heavily mined and booby-trapped — the base perimeter and the areas of operation around Camp Radcliff were a persistent hazard — and the Highway 19 corridor (the Pleiku–An Khe road the division's convoys used) was repeatedly flagged in the period's after-action reports as mine-threatened. Either a base-area device or a road incident is consistent with the record, though the brigade's airlift home (rather than a convoy move from the forward LZs) makes a Highway 19 incident on the return leg unlikely. The circumstances are not yet established from primary sources.

The casualty province of record in the DCAS is "Quang Nam" — an I Corps province on the coast far from where D Company was operating. This is almost certainly a data-entry error; the 1st Cavalry Division was in the II Corps highlands in April 1966, not in the Marine TAOR. The Virtual Wall carries the province as not reported.

SP4 Terry Rippy

Terry Allen Rippy was from Hammond, Oregon, a small community on the north coast of Clatsop County. He arrived in Vietnam on November 30, 1965, among D Company's first men in country. Airborne-qualified — MOS 11H2P, infantry direct-fire crewman — he had been with the company through the division's early operations, including the Pleiku Campaign and the highlands sweeps that winter. He was 23 years old and 144 days into his tour when he was killed.

He is memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Panel 6E, Line 128.

Help us complete the record

The action on April 22, 1966 that killed SP4 Rippy has not been confirmed against a primary source. If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry in the spring of 1966, or knew Terry Rippy, please reach us through the contribute form.