Paul Van Riper

Paul K. Van Riper (born July 5, 1938) is a retired United States Marine Corps officer. Since his retirement Van Riper has served on several advisory boards and panels. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

At the time of his retirement, Van Riper was serving as the Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Virginia.

Early life
Paul K. Van Riper was born on July 5, 1938 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

Marine Corps career
Van Riper enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and underwent recruit training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina in the fall of 1956, joined Officer Candidate Course in June 1963 and commissioned a second lieutenant in November 1963.

In late 1965, Van Riper served in the Republic of Vietnam as an Advisor with the Vietnamese Marine Corps, was wounded while attacking a NVA machine gun in a rice paddy outside Saigon, and evacuated on February 7, 1966. He later served in Egypt, Israel, Lebanon and Okinawa. He commanded 3rd Battalion, Seventh Marines, First Marine Division (Mike Company) in South Vietnam during 1968, the Battalion Commander of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment from 1983 to 1985, and later the 4th Marines until December 1986. Van Riper served temporarily as a member of the MARCENT/I Marine Expeditionary Force staff during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm from January to March 1991.

Returning to Washington, D.C., Van Riper served as Assistant Chief of Staff, Command, Control, Communications, and Computer and as Director of Intelligence from April 1993 until July 1995. He was advanced to Lieutenant General and assumed his last post on July 13, 1995. At this post Lieutenant General Van Riper was an honorary member of the Provost Marshal Office, and spent some of his lunch breaks issuing speeding tickets all across MCB Quantico. Lieutenant General Van Riper retired on 1 October 1997, after more than 41 years of service.

Post-retirement
Van Riper gained notoriety after the Millennium Challenge 2002 wargame. He played the Red Team opposing force commander, and easily sank a whole carrier battle group in the simulation with an inferior Middle-Eastern "red" team in the first two days.

To do this, Van Riper adopted an asymmetric strategy. In particular, he used old methods to evade his opponent's sophisticated electronic surveillance network. Van Riper used motorcycle messengers to transmit orders to front-line troops and World War II light signals to launch airplanes without radio communications. Van Riper used a fleet of small boats to determine the position of the opponent's fleet by the second day of the exercise. In a preemptive strike, he launched a massive salvo of cruise missiles that overwhelmed the Blue forces' electronic sensors and destroyed sixteen warships. This included one aircraft carrier, ten cruisers and five of six amphibious ships. An equivalent success in a real conflict would have resulted in the deaths of over 20,000 service personnel. Soon after the cruise missile offensive, another significant portion of the opposing navy was "sunk" by an armada of small Red boats, which carried out both conventional and suicide attacks that capitalized on Blue's inability to detect them as well as expected.

After the simulation was restarted with different parameters, he claimed that the wargame had been fixed to falsely validate the current doctrine of the U.S. Navy. He is also critical of post-war Iraq plans and implementation. On April 24, 2006, he joined several other retired generals in calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.

Decorations and awards
General Van Ripers's military awards include:

He is a graduate of the Army's Airborne and Ranger Schools.


 * Note: The gold US Navy Parachute Rigger badge was worn unofficially by USMC personnel in place of US Army parachutist badge from 1942-1963 before it officially became the Navy and Marine Corps Parachutist insignia on July 12, 1963 per BuPers Notice 1020. Members of the Marine Corps who attended jump school before 1963 were issued the silver Army parachutist badge but may be depicted wearing the gold Navy Parachute Rigger badge as it was common practice during this time period.