All soldiers share a common identity. They are men under orders. And, under orders, they live, and die.
My uncle, Robert Moynihan, for whom I am named, was two years older than my father. He was a U.S. Marine and fought in the Second World War from 1943 to 1945, on the USS Hornet in the South Pacific, as a gunner. After the war, he went into religious life and became a Franciscan friar, taking the name Fr. Norman, OFM. (Someone told me he was never the same after those two years from near Australia up to Japan, manning a ship anti-aircraft gun.)
I remember my uncle coming to visit our home in the 1950s, wearing his brown robe and white cord with three knots, representing his three vows. He seemed to me to have a special quality about him, from the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, to the clothes he wore, his religious robes, to the sound of his voice, which seemed deep and close and intimate, and yet also to come from very far away. That quality was “presence” and “intentionality” and “commitment.” He had chosen to set his life on a certain course, and having set out on that course, he continued it steadily forward to the end. He died of a heart attack on March 30, 1980, at the Franciscan friary on 31st Street in New York City. He was 55.
My father, who died in 2020 at the age of 93, was also a U.S. Marine. (One of his barrack mates in Washington DC in the late 1940s was George C. Scott, who later became an actor and played the role of General Patton in the film Patton. I have a photo of the two of them standing next to each other.)
On this day, September 4, in 1967, a young Marine chaplain, Fr. Vince Capodanno, died in Vietnam — 57 years ago today.
He was just 38.
He died while administering the last rites to dying soldiers in a fire-fight.
Below is a brief account of his death, published just a few days ago by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman.
I have a devotion to Fr. Vince, a man of commitment, a man of courage, a man of devotion to his duty and to his soldiers.
And I hope he will be canonized as a saint.
Semper Fi — RM
Father Vince Capodanno, the “Grunt Padre,” who died in Vietnam 57 years ago today
The Grunt Padre (link)
August 23, 2024
NOTE: Enjoy this excerpt from The American Daily Reader, by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman. To order the complete volume, visit the CatholicVote store today!
The attack came before dawn on September 4, 1967, while most of the 1st Battalion 5th Marines’ Delta Company still slept.
The evening before, the Americans had set up a nighttime defensive perimeter, but with 2,500 North Vietnamese soldiers aligned against them, it didn’t help. D Company was outnumbered and outgunned.
The battle raged for hours.
The gunfire was relentless.
So too, however, was the D Company’s chaplain, Father Vincent Capodanno.
Under heavy artillery fire, the Staten Island native administered Last Rites to the dying and pulled the wounded to safety.
The injured men were heavy, but Father Capodanno had grown accustomed to carrying heavy loads.
For the past 17 months, ever since he had arrived in Vietnam, the former Maryknoll missionary had carried his own gear — over 40 pounds’ worth.
Capodanno could have handed off his burden to another Marine, but he didn’t think his priesthood should exempt him from the trials his men faced.
That’s why the Marines called him “The Grunt Padre.”
And that’s why, when battle began on September 4, he didn’t retreat to safety.
As the morning progressed, Capodanno’s decision to remain in the thick of the fighting earned him shrapnel wounds in the right arm, hand, and leg.
But he refused medical attention and went on administering Last Rites with his one good hand.
Nothing seemed to stop him.
Then, something did.
Hours into the battle, Capodanno spotted a wounded Marine pinned down yards away from a machine gun.
Venturing forward was a risk.
Capodanno took it.
He made it safely to the Marine’s side, but as soon as he did, the enemy soldier manning the gun opened fire.
The 38-year-old priest died instantly.
Capodanno was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, and the Bronze Star, and in 1971, the U.S. Navy named a ship in his honor, the USS Capodanno.
It later became the first American ship to receive a papal blessing.
Father Capodanno’s cause for canonization opened in 2002.
[End excerpt]
Please send to me any reports or stories of healings through the intercession of Fr. Vince Capodanno. I believe in his holiness, and I believe, with my late friend Navy Captain Edward “Ted” Bronson, who flew hundreds of missions over Vietnam, and worked for the cause of Fr, Vince, that Capodanno’s canonization would also help the cause of healing relations between the people of Vietnam and of the United States. —RM
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