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Terry
Rippy
Rippy
SP4 · · 11H2P · Infantry Direct Fire Crewman (Airborne Qual)
KIA
In-Country Service
1965-11-30 –
Home of Record
Hammond, Clatsop County, OR
Character of Service
Honorable
Archive Status
Active
Service timeline not yet compiled. If you served with or knew Terry Rippy, please use the contribute form to share what you remember.
1965-11-30
Arrived
Arrived in Vietnam — November 30, 1965
SP4 Terry Rippy began his tour with D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry (Airmobile), 1st Cavalry Division, Republic of Vietnam — among the division's first months in country. Airborne-qualified (MOS 11H2P, infantry direct-fire crewman), he was 23, from Hammond on the Oregon coast.
1966-04-22
KIA
Killed in action — April 22, 1966
SP4 Terry Rippy was killed by an explosive device on April 22, 1966 — a hostile death, "died outright," recorded as a ground casualty. He had been in Vietnam about five months, among D Company's earliest losses of the war. His death falls just after **Operation Mosby I** (16–17 April 1966, a two-brigade reconnaissance-in-force in Pleiku and Kontum) — the operational arc that ran Jim Bowie → Lincoln → Mosby I, before Operation Crazy Horse in May. During Lincoln, D Company's forward position was **LZ Cotton** in the Chu Pong / border country — roughly 120 km from An Khe — so the battalion did not convoy home: the 1st Brigade was **airlifted back to An Khe by C-130 on 16–17 April**, staged through the Oasis. By the 22nd the company had been back at **An Khe (Camp Radcliff)** for several days, which is the likeliest place of his death by explosive device — the An Khe TAOR was heavily mined and booby-trapped — with a Highway 19 incident a secondary possibility. The exact place and action are not yet confirmed, and his casualty province of record ("Quang Nam," I Corps) is a DCAS error — the 1st Cavalry was in the II Corps highlands, not the I Corps coast, in April 1966. His name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Panel 6E, Line 128.
1966-04-22
Casualty record
At or near An Khe (Camp Radcliff), Binh Dinh Province, II Corps, RVN
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