File Name: Wallace A. Weems
Primary Military Specialty: Airborne Infantry
Secondary Military Specialty: Jump Instructor
Birthplace: Columbus, Ohio

Ripcord served the G.I. Joe team with courage and distinction for many years as their HALO specialist. During one mission, he met a woman, Candy, with whom he became romantically involved. Early in the relationship, Ripcord found that his life of danger on the Joe team could cause problems for his love life. Candy was later involved in an escape attempt from a military prison bus and, after escaping, was killed in an explosion caused by Scrap-Iron. Ripcord found out the details of her death soon after, and managed to fight through his grief and continue his service with the Joes. After the team disbanded, Ripcord was unemployed for a time, and began to struggle with feelings of guilt over his part in Candy's death, as well as resentment for the military's, and the Joe team's, part in it. Years of such feelings took their toll, and Ripcord began to despise the Joe team, believing that their single-minded pursuit of Cobra caused them to sacrifice innocent lives in the process. Eventually, these feelings consumed him, and he attempted to join Cobra. Cobra Commander did not completely trust Ripcord's conversion, but realized that the information that Ripcord possessed about the Joe team was valuable enough to make such a risk worthwhile. Ripcord has since been Cobra's parachute instructor, but has yet to gain sufficient trust to be sent on a field mission.