It may have been more than 55 years after the fact, but brother Knights and service members paid proper tribute Aug. 1 to a hero priest who lost his life on a combat field in Vietnam.
Chaplain and Vietnam veteran Father Vincent Capodanno was remembered at a ceremony at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.
Four men helped bring the story to life of this brave and holy man last month on an episode of Diocese of Wilmington radio program “Catholic Forum” in advance of the service in Dover. Retired Navy Vice Admiral P. Stephen Stanley, chairman of the board of directors of the Father Vincent Capodanno Guild; Eric Czerwinski, deputy director of the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base; Ron Gough, caretaker of the Medal of Honor Hallway of Heroes at the museum, and Dr. Anthony M. Policastro, a retired pediatrician, Air Force officer, and current Faithful Navigator of the Father Vincent R. Capodanno Assembly #2413 of the Knights of Columbus in Sussex County, Delaware, have worked to bring recognition to the priest whose cause is being considered for sainthood.
A Medal of Honor recipient, Maryknoll priest and Navy chaplain, Father Capodanno was added to the “Medal of Honor Hallway of Heroes” at the museum. Adm. Stanley told Father Capodanno’s story during the Aug. 1 ceremony.
“He discerned a second vocation – a vocation within a vocation,” Adm. Stanley told Catholic Forum of Father Capodanno’s assignment to Hong Kong in the mid-1960s, where he began meeting combat veterans who were there on break from the conflict from Vietnam. “Now, he wants to be a chaplain.”
After training, he was deployed to Vietnam to support Marines and others.
“The Marines gave him the title ‘Grunt Padre.’ That’s a title of endearment. He meant so much to them. He was one of them.”
He was in Vietnam for a year before taking a break back home. Upon return to the war zone, he was assigned to another Marine regiment. They were engaged in combat.
“He’s out there with these men where they’re getting ready to take off in these helicopters. He’s passing out cigarettes and St. Christopher medals, telling them ‘God will be with us this day.’ One of his other techniques was he waited until all of the other leadership was already gone, and he jumped on the last helicopter into combat, so they couldn’t tell him not to go.”
Father Capodanno joined the soldiers in “a dire firefight, providing comfort to the Marines as they were injured,” said Adm. Stanley. The priest took sniper fire to his right hand, possibly losing some fingers. He was bandaged and refused evacuation. He was moving forward when a mortar shell went off and he lost control of his right arm.
“The problem is he was there to bless the Marines, give them last rites, but he couldn’t move his right arm, so he began using his left arm to move his right arm.”
He bolted to the aid of two U.S. fighters who needed help.
“He took 27 .50 caliber machine gun bullets up his back, killed, obviously,” Adm. Stanley said He died that day, Sept. 4, 1967.
Tom Firestone, current master, Delaware District, for the Knights of Columbus, was among about 50 people to attend the ceremony.
“It was unbelievable,” Firestone said. “It was more of military service than a Knights of Columbus service. I thought they did a fabulous job of presenting the man’s life, how he was killed in battle. They found a manual log of his remains coming through Dover Air Force Base, so there was that connection.”
“This is a guy that volunteered, wanted to be a chaplain. He wanted to serve his country.
“They really helped me understand who he was as a person, the sacrifices he made and what an honor it was to earn this award. It left me with a ‘Wow!’ The museum did a beautiful job of documenting who he was. It was just a beautiful tribute.”
Father William Cocco, pastor of St. Edmond parish in Rehoboth Beach, offered the invocation and led the group in prayer.
Dr. Policastro, a Sussex County, Del., resident, Knights of Columbus member and Air Force veteran, has helped advance the case of Father Capodanno.
“Everything just sort of fell into place, and this was the right thing to do,” he told Catholic Forum.
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