The middle-aged man who had wanted to be a Catholic priest since the fourth grade had been just that for nearly ten years.  Now he felt it was important to serve his Country as well as his God and enlisted as a Chaplain in the Army.  At the age of 38 he volunteered for Airborne training, then went to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division.

Ever mindful of the suffering around him, the brave Father went into the field with the young soldiers again and again...ministering to their spiritual needs and helping to bind up the broken bodies of the wounded.    When his year of duty ended, he volunteered to remain for another tour...his boys needed him.

After more than 50 encounters with the enemy, he was one of three chaplains joining paratroopers for a jump into the 1967 battle for Dak To.   During the horrible battle of that afternoon, five times he left a position of safety to risk his life to save the wounded.  All day he tended broken bodies, bandaged the wounded, and comforted the dying.  As darkness fell the heroic chaplain knelt to administer Last Rites to a dying soldier when an errant 500-pound bomb fell near him.  A man of God who had lived for others, vanished in the explosion.