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03-11-2005, 10:57 AM
A Heart Laid Bare - Army Captain Russell B. Rippetoe (http://federalistpatriot.us/news/rippetoe.asp)
By Clay Latimer
Courtesy of the Rocky Mountain News
April 3, 2004
GAITHERSBURG, Maryland - In the hours before he left for Iraq, Russell Rippetoe found time in the anxious scramble to crowd in some personal business.
Moving through a mental checklist, the Army Ranger called his best friend in Colorado, taped a note to his locker at Fort Benning, Georgia, arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be sent to his mother and phoned his father at their Arvada home three times, though Russell had little to say. When his son called again, Joe Rippetoe, a retired Ranger, Lieutenant Colonel and disabled Vietnam veteran, knew enough to feel uneasy.
"It initially took my breath. I didn't know what to say. I tried to be strong, but I lost it," he said. "I couldn't understand why he had called so many times. I didn't read between the lines."
That was the last time Joe Rippetoe spoke to his son.
A year ago today, Russell Rippetoe, Captain of the Broomfield High School soccer team, homecoming king and an Eagle Scout, was manning a nighttime checkpoint near Hadithah Dam in western Iraq when a car approached carrying Iraqi civilians. A pregnant woman got out and ran screaming from the car, Rippetoe stepped toward her, the car exploded, and he and two other soldiers were killed, victims of a terrorist ruse.
On a gloomy and windy morning a week later, Rippetoe, 27, became the first casualty of the Iraq conflict to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the hallowed ground that is a graveyard and memorial to more than 250,000 American fighters stretching to the Revolutionary War.
When honor guard soldiers pulled his son's flag-covered coffin from the caisson, Joe Rippetoe, using his left hand to guide his right into position, fired off a final salute to his only son.
On Memorial Day, President Bush invited Joe and his wife, Rita, to the White House for breakfast and mentioned Russell in his annual address in the Arlington amphitheater.
Soon the drums and bugles moved on. But not Joe.
Soldier and father
On another overcast and blustery morning at Arlington almost a year later, he struggles to tell his story. He inspects pebbles, pennies and other tokens of remembrance at his son's tombstone, reads the simple words on a simple marker, walks over to two fresh, muddy graves and comes back to Grave No. 7860, an old soldier conscripted into an ancient nightmare.
"I've gone the whole cycle now. I've been the soldier, I've been the one waiting at home for phone calls and mail and now I've buried my son," he said.
"My son was just a big, lovable teddy bear. He always was the type to look out for people. The way he smiled at you, the way he looked at you - you were his. He had such a big heart. And that's what killed him."
For the Rippetoes, military service is a family tradition. Joe's father was a military man. Joe's uncles served in World War II and Korea. His nephew was in the thick of Vietnam. According to family lore, a Rippetoe served in George Washington's army.
When he moved to Gaithersburg in March 2002, Joe Rippetoe, 67, converted an upstairs office into a War Room, where he has gathered old combat maps, old photos (he looks remarkably like his son), combat gear and his and Russell's medals.
He also has collected Russell's final possessions: dog tags, a scorched religious emblem, two Bibles, a wallet with about $40 and a diary that chronicles his final days and thoughts, which Joe leafs through periodically.
March 27 - At 18:00 . . . the Shock and Awe air campaign started. I've been having chest pains. I think it is from all the excitement; just trying to relax and (know) I work with the best and I know my job. I think we've got the planning down now; it is time to do it. I hope my family is not too stressed out . . . Well, it should definitely go down in the history books.
Father eager, too
Joe, too, was eager to get in the game as an ROTC student at Eastern Michigan, where he was a varsity wrestler and student body president in the late 1950s.
"I was always physical, and the military was the most physical," he said. "When you're short, you seem to be a little more competitive because you're at a disadvantage. That's why I was in very physical sports."
After graduation, Rippetoe started a 28-year career that included three tours in Europe, three years at the Pentagon as an intelligence director and seven years at the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska, where he helped select bombing sites in the former Soviet Union.
During two tours in Vietnam, Rippetoe led intelligence-gathering missions in enemy-held territory, dropping into booby-trapped hot zones with minimal supplies.
"When you drop into the boonies, you not only have to worry about the bush, you've got to worry about trip wires and big, nasty rocks with spikes, which come out of trees," he said. "You've got to worry about limbs with big spikes, or about falling into a pit with big stakes.
"One morning, a replacement jumped in and landed on a mine. We couldn't find any of him.
"We constantly replaced the point guy because of the pressure. Your heart just pounded. We were in hot water all the time."
In between foreign assignments, Rippetoe was tooling through Kentucky in his Grand Prix when he spotted two women at a stop sign; one was Rita, a Louisville resident, whom he married in a traditional military ceremony.
"Everybody was in dress uniform," Rippetoe said. "When I want to feel like I'm on Cloud Nine, I put on my uniform."
Russell was born in 1975 in Heidelberg, West Germany, three years after his sister, Rebecca, who lives in Aurora with her husband.
"Russell got his fire, and the drive to be the best, to do things right, from his father," said Brent Tuccio, a longtime friend. "Joe can be a fireball. When Russell got like that, he'd look at me and say, 'That was a Joe moment.'
"He wanted to be like his mom, wanted to be passive, wanted to be laid-back, wanted to watch things from a distance. He's half like his dad, half like his mom."
Worked at making friends
Joe Rippetoe left the military in 1988, suffering from chronic pain and post-traumatic stress syndrome from combat in Vietnam, and moved his family to Broomfield as Russell entered seventh grade.
"Because he didn't know anybody, he'd shake everybody's hand when he introduced himself," Tuccio said. "People kind of gave him a hard time for doing that because it was seventh grade. He was very mature. He wanted to be friends with everybody."
Rippetoe also joined a church group, forming friendships that lasted until his death, including one with Laura Clark, one of many Colorado friends who attended his funeral.
"I didn't have a date to my senior prom," Clark said. "We didn't go to the same school, and he had a soccer tournament that weekend. But he played soccer all day Saturday, took me to prom and played soccer all day Sunday. He knew how much I wanted to go. He was that kind of guy."
Rippetoe threw himself into football, karate, wrestling and distance running, but soccer was the ultimate kick. Although he wasn't a gifted athlete, he transformed himself into a tough, solid sweeper. As captain of the Broomfield High team in his senior year, he broke a leg and collarbone. "He was a grinder," Tuccio said.
Rippetoe received rave reviews from Broomfield's water boy - Joe Rippetoe, who dispensed water, gum, towels and encouraging words from his sideline perch in a golf cart.
"I took care of the men," he said.
Russell Rippetoe entered Metro State in 1994, signed up for Air Force ROTC and moved into an apartment, working a 30-hour week at LoDo restaurants to pay his bills. With model good looks, he earned a spot as an extra in a TV mini-series and was a pinup in the Men of LoDo, an annual calendar promoting lower downtown.
Unable to fly jets because of poor vision, Rippetoe transferred to the University of Colorado's Army ROTC program as a junior. He left Denver at 5 a.m. for training in Boulder, then returned for a 9 a.m. class at Metro, where he studied criminal justice, hoping to eventually become an FBI agent.
With his father pinning his second lieutenant bars on his uniform, Rippetoe received his Army commission in 1999 in Boulder.
"Joe was so proud, you could see it on his face," said Jim Mason, a neighbor at the time. "It was very moving."
The rest click on link above
By Clay Latimer
Courtesy of the Rocky Mountain News
April 3, 2004
GAITHERSBURG, Maryland - In the hours before he left for Iraq, Russell Rippetoe found time in the anxious scramble to crowd in some personal business.
Moving through a mental checklist, the Army Ranger called his best friend in Colorado, taped a note to his locker at Fort Benning, Georgia, arranged for a bouquet of flowers to be sent to his mother and phoned his father at their Arvada home three times, though Russell had little to say. When his son called again, Joe Rippetoe, a retired Ranger, Lieutenant Colonel and disabled Vietnam veteran, knew enough to feel uneasy.
"It initially took my breath. I didn't know what to say. I tried to be strong, but I lost it," he said. "I couldn't understand why he had called so many times. I didn't read between the lines."
That was the last time Joe Rippetoe spoke to his son.
A year ago today, Russell Rippetoe, Captain of the Broomfield High School soccer team, homecoming king and an Eagle Scout, was manning a nighttime checkpoint near Hadithah Dam in western Iraq when a car approached carrying Iraqi civilians. A pregnant woman got out and ran screaming from the car, Rippetoe stepped toward her, the car exploded, and he and two other soldiers were killed, victims of a terrorist ruse.
On a gloomy and windy morning a week later, Rippetoe, 27, became the first casualty of the Iraq conflict to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the hallowed ground that is a graveyard and memorial to more than 250,000 American fighters stretching to the Revolutionary War.
When honor guard soldiers pulled his son's flag-covered coffin from the caisson, Joe Rippetoe, using his left hand to guide his right into position, fired off a final salute to his only son.
On Memorial Day, President Bush invited Joe and his wife, Rita, to the White House for breakfast and mentioned Russell in his annual address in the Arlington amphitheater.
Soon the drums and bugles moved on. But not Joe.
Soldier and father
On another overcast and blustery morning at Arlington almost a year later, he struggles to tell his story. He inspects pebbles, pennies and other tokens of remembrance at his son's tombstone, reads the simple words on a simple marker, walks over to two fresh, muddy graves and comes back to Grave No. 7860, an old soldier conscripted into an ancient nightmare.
"I've gone the whole cycle now. I've been the soldier, I've been the one waiting at home for phone calls and mail and now I've buried my son," he said.
"My son was just a big, lovable teddy bear. He always was the type to look out for people. The way he smiled at you, the way he looked at you - you were his. He had such a big heart. And that's what killed him."
For the Rippetoes, military service is a family tradition. Joe's father was a military man. Joe's uncles served in World War II and Korea. His nephew was in the thick of Vietnam. According to family lore, a Rippetoe served in George Washington's army.
When he moved to Gaithersburg in March 2002, Joe Rippetoe, 67, converted an upstairs office into a War Room, where he has gathered old combat maps, old photos (he looks remarkably like his son), combat gear and his and Russell's medals.
He also has collected Russell's final possessions: dog tags, a scorched religious emblem, two Bibles, a wallet with about $40 and a diary that chronicles his final days and thoughts, which Joe leafs through periodically.
March 27 - At 18:00 . . . the Shock and Awe air campaign started. I've been having chest pains. I think it is from all the excitement; just trying to relax and (know) I work with the best and I know my job. I think we've got the planning down now; it is time to do it. I hope my family is not too stressed out . . . Well, it should definitely go down in the history books.
Father eager, too
Joe, too, was eager to get in the game as an ROTC student at Eastern Michigan, where he was a varsity wrestler and student body president in the late 1950s.
"I was always physical, and the military was the most physical," he said. "When you're short, you seem to be a little more competitive because you're at a disadvantage. That's why I was in very physical sports."
After graduation, Rippetoe started a 28-year career that included three tours in Europe, three years at the Pentagon as an intelligence director and seven years at the Strategic Air Command in Nebraska, where he helped select bombing sites in the former Soviet Union.
During two tours in Vietnam, Rippetoe led intelligence-gathering missions in enemy-held territory, dropping into booby-trapped hot zones with minimal supplies.
"When you drop into the boonies, you not only have to worry about the bush, you've got to worry about trip wires and big, nasty rocks with spikes, which come out of trees," he said. "You've got to worry about limbs with big spikes, or about falling into a pit with big stakes.
"One morning, a replacement jumped in and landed on a mine. We couldn't find any of him.
"We constantly replaced the point guy because of the pressure. Your heart just pounded. We were in hot water all the time."
In between foreign assignments, Rippetoe was tooling through Kentucky in his Grand Prix when he spotted two women at a stop sign; one was Rita, a Louisville resident, whom he married in a traditional military ceremony.
"Everybody was in dress uniform," Rippetoe said. "When I want to feel like I'm on Cloud Nine, I put on my uniform."
Russell was born in 1975 in Heidelberg, West Germany, three years after his sister, Rebecca, who lives in Aurora with her husband.
"Russell got his fire, and the drive to be the best, to do things right, from his father," said Brent Tuccio, a longtime friend. "Joe can be a fireball. When Russell got like that, he'd look at me and say, 'That was a Joe moment.'
"He wanted to be like his mom, wanted to be passive, wanted to be laid-back, wanted to watch things from a distance. He's half like his dad, half like his mom."
Worked at making friends
Joe Rippetoe left the military in 1988, suffering from chronic pain and post-traumatic stress syndrome from combat in Vietnam, and moved his family to Broomfield as Russell entered seventh grade.
"Because he didn't know anybody, he'd shake everybody's hand when he introduced himself," Tuccio said. "People kind of gave him a hard time for doing that because it was seventh grade. He was very mature. He wanted to be friends with everybody."
Rippetoe also joined a church group, forming friendships that lasted until his death, including one with Laura Clark, one of many Colorado friends who attended his funeral.
"I didn't have a date to my senior prom," Clark said. "We didn't go to the same school, and he had a soccer tournament that weekend. But he played soccer all day Saturday, took me to prom and played soccer all day Sunday. He knew how much I wanted to go. He was that kind of guy."
Rippetoe threw himself into football, karate, wrestling and distance running, but soccer was the ultimate kick. Although he wasn't a gifted athlete, he transformed himself into a tough, solid sweeper. As captain of the Broomfield High team in his senior year, he broke a leg and collarbone. "He was a grinder," Tuccio said.
Rippetoe received rave reviews from Broomfield's water boy - Joe Rippetoe, who dispensed water, gum, towels and encouraging words from his sideline perch in a golf cart.
"I took care of the men," he said.
Russell Rippetoe entered Metro State in 1994, signed up for Air Force ROTC and moved into an apartment, working a 30-hour week at LoDo restaurants to pay his bills. With model good looks, he earned a spot as an extra in a TV mini-series and was a pinup in the Men of LoDo, an annual calendar promoting lower downtown.
Unable to fly jets because of poor vision, Rippetoe transferred to the University of Colorado's Army ROTC program as a junior. He left Denver at 5 a.m. for training in Boulder, then returned for a 9 a.m. class at Metro, where he studied criminal justice, hoping to eventually become an FBI agent.
With his father pinning his second lieutenant bars on his uniform, Rippetoe received his Army commission in 1999 in Boulder.
"Joe was so proud, you could see it on his face," said Jim Mason, a neighbor at the time. "It was very moving."
The rest click on link above