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Vietnam vet reflects on days as a 'Copperhead'
by Bob Campbell
Midland Reporter-Telegram
Larry Allen Rippee went to Vietnam in April 1966 for an unusual reason and once there, having spent 10 months as an infantryman with the Army's "Big Red One" division, extended his 12-month tour to be a machinegunner on a helicopter.
He had enlisted after dropping out of high school in Oklahoma City and was in Aschaffenburg, Germany, when he learned of an anti-war protest by 1,000 people in Berlin. Rippee hadn't been aware of any opposition and was upset to turn to the back page of Stars & Stripes newspaper and read of a counter-demonstration by 10,000.
Feeling the bigger event should have been more prominent, he volunteered for Vietnam and soon was in the jungle with the First Division's First Battalion of the 28th Regiment. "We were always looking for a fight and sometimes it erupted," said Rippee, 63.
"You only covered the ground you stood on and sometimes that was contested. The Vietcong had jungle base camps and you might walk into one before you saw a thing."
Based at Phuoc Vinh, near Cambodia in the "Parrot's Beak" area, he volunteered for a second tour to join the crew of a Huey gunship and fire a 7.62 mm M-60 from the right side door. "Give a kid a helicopter and a machine gun and it was a pretty exciting time," he said, explaining he "felt invincible" at age 22.
In constant combat with the 162nd Helicopter Assault Company, or "Copperheads," Rippee's rocket and cannon loaded chopper tilted right for him to fire at a jungle line when an enemy fired an M-16 rifle taken from an American casualty and the bullet ripped through his left thigh.
His crew chief staunched the wound, and Rippee was later grateful to learn the bullet had missed his thigh bone (femur) and sciatic nerve because the leg otherwise would have been amputated.
He had flown for six months when wounded on Sept. 2, 1967, and he had the good luck to met Janice Heezen, a registered nurse from Plankinton, S.D., at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colo.
Their children are Teresa Ginter of Midland and Texas Department of Public Safety Capt. Bryan Rippee of Hurst,. Bryan served as an Army guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington for three years in the early 1990s. They have five grandchildren.
Rippee's dad Forest is a retired Oklahoma City Fire Department captain. His late mom Wanda Jeanne Cuppy was a teacher -- a profession Rippee tried in his hometown for a year after taking a social studies degree at the University of Central Oklahoma. He has been in Midland since 1977.
He said Phuoc Vinh "was a busy little place" with 2,000 personnel and the Vietcong lofting mortar shells into the camp in the middle of the night. "It would disrupt your sleeping routine, but you kind of got used to it," he said.
The 162nd was distressed when a screwdriver lodged in a mini-gun to keep its barrels from rotating came loose one day and a crew chief was killed by a single shot. "You got acclimated to what was going on, but it always seemed like there were a lot of wasted deaths," said Rippee, co-owner with his brother Michael of Escudero (shield-bearer) Inc. chemical company.
Like many Permian Basin veterans, he loves Rusk Elementary School's annual Veterans Day program in the Commemorative Air Force Hangar and will be there again at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday.
Rippee's brother, a mechanical engineer, said he followed the example of their dad, who was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and is proud of his grandson Keifer, who is in Army training in Georgia. "Anything he said would have been the truth, but he probably underplayed it," the younger Rippee said.
"Larry is a real decent, honest guy who has never tried to use his war background to his advantage. He doesn't volunteer any information but will talk if somebody asks him. It was just something he did and he moved on from there. But he is not a fearful type of person."
Larry and Janice have a mobile home at Lake Amistad near Del Rio, where he pursues his No. 1 hobby, fishing. He broke his left leg in May 2008 when he grabbed an oilfield pipe and fell into a hole. It took a year to heal, but he has kept bowling at AMF Midland Park Lanes.
Having won a Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman's Badge, Rippee shows a bullet fragment removed from his leg when it surfaced under a stitch that would not heal. "The doctor put it in this pill bottle and where it says, 'Refill,' he wrote, 'Please don't!'" he said, chuckling.
Bob Campbell can be reached at campbell@mrt.com.
He had enlisted after dropping out of high school in Oklahoma City and was in Aschaffenburg, Germany, when he learned of an anti-war protest by 1,000 people in Berlin. Rippee hadn't been aware of any opposition and was upset to turn to the back page of Stars & Stripes newspaper and read of a counter-demonstration by 10,000.
Feeling the bigger event should have been more prominent, he volunteered for Vietnam and soon was in the jungle with the First Division's First Battalion of the 28th Regiment. "We were always looking for a fight and sometimes it erupted," said Rippee, 63.
"You only covered the ground you stood on and sometimes that was contested. The Vietcong had jungle base camps and you might walk into one before you saw a thing."
Based at Phuoc Vinh, near Cambodia in the "Parrot's Beak" area, he volunteered for a second tour to join the crew of a Huey gunship and fire a 7.62 mm M-60 from the right side door. "Give a kid a helicopter and a machine gun and it was a pretty exciting time," he said, explaining he "felt invincible" at age 22.
In constant combat with the 162nd Helicopter Assault Company, or "Copperheads," Rippee's rocket and cannon loaded chopper tilted right for him to fire at a jungle line when an enemy fired an M-16 rifle taken from an American casualty and the bullet ripped through his left thigh.
His crew chief staunched the wound, and Rippee was later grateful to learn the bullet had missed his thigh bone (femur) and sciatic nerve because the leg otherwise would have been amputated.
He had flown for six months when wounded on Sept. 2, 1967, and he had the good luck to met Janice Heezen, a registered nurse from Plankinton, S.D., at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Aurora, Colo.
Their children are Teresa Ginter of Midland and Texas Department of Public Safety Capt. Bryan Rippee of Hurst,. Bryan served as an Army guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington for three years in the early 1990s. They have five grandchildren.
Rippee's dad Forest is a retired Oklahoma City Fire Department captain. His late mom Wanda Jeanne Cuppy was a teacher -- a profession Rippee tried in his hometown for a year after taking a social studies degree at the University of Central Oklahoma. He has been in Midland since 1977.
He said Phuoc Vinh "was a busy little place" with 2,000 personnel and the Vietcong lofting mortar shells into the camp in the middle of the night. "It would disrupt your sleeping routine, but you kind of got used to it," he said.
The 162nd was distressed when a screwdriver lodged in a mini-gun to keep its barrels from rotating came loose one day and a crew chief was killed by a single shot. "You got acclimated to what was going on, but it always seemed like there were a lot of wasted deaths," said Rippee, co-owner with his brother Michael of Escudero (shield-bearer) Inc. chemical company.
Like many Permian Basin veterans, he loves Rusk Elementary School's annual Veterans Day program in the Commemorative Air Force Hangar and will be there again at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday.
Rippee's brother, a mechanical engineer, said he followed the example of their dad, who was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, and is proud of his grandson Keifer, who is in Army training in Georgia. "Anything he said would have been the truth, but he probably underplayed it," the younger Rippee said.
"Larry is a real decent, honest guy who has never tried to use his war background to his advantage. He doesn't volunteer any information but will talk if somebody asks him. It was just something he did and he moved on from there. But he is not a fearful type of person."
Larry and Janice have a mobile home at Lake Amistad near Del Rio, where he pursues his No. 1 hobby, fishing. He broke his left leg in May 2008 when he grabbed an oilfield pipe and fell into a hole. It took a year to heal, but he has kept bowling at AMF Midland Park Lanes.
Having won a Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman's Badge, Rippee shows a bullet fragment removed from his leg when it surfaced under a stitch that would not heal. "The doctor put it in this pill bottle and where it says, 'Refill,' he wrote, 'Please don't!'" he said, chuckling.
Bob Campbell can be reached at campbell@mrt.com.
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