BROOKINGS — War brings disruption. It did to many of the staff of the United States Naval Hospital, Long Beach, California, in 1967 and 1968, when the Vietnam War was well underway. Regular shore duty tours were being cut short. Having come to the hospital in 1966 after three years of sea duty aboard a World War II-vintage fleet oiler (USS Caliente AO-53), I was anticipating at a minimum three years of shore duty in Long Beach. It was not to be.
In early 1968, I received orders to USS Vernon County LST-1161, a tank landing ship homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. As a hospital corpsman and first-class petty officer (HM1), I would be on independent duty — “doc” — for a crew of about 200. The Vernon County was further assigned to the Mobile Riverine Force as the Navy’s piece of the action, shared with the U.S. Army’s 9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta.
Meanwhile, some of the more junior corpsmen at Long Beach were being assigned to Marine Corps units with the almost certainty of serving a year-long tour in Vietnam. As an aside, let me note that the Marine Corps does not have its own medical department or chaplain corps and relies on the Navy to fulfill its needs here.
One of those junior corpsmen I got to know well was HM2 David Robert “Bobby” Ray — a tall, thin, easygoing Tennessean who worked down the hall from me. To those he came in contact with, he had a ready smile and a greeting. He didn’t wait for orders to serve in a Marine unit. In May 1968, he volunteered for duty with the FMF (Fleet Marine Force). After a brief stint at Field Medical School, Camp Pendleton, California, Ray was assigned to Battery D, 2nd Battalion, 111th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), at An Hoa, South Vietnam.
I knew quite a few of those junior corpsmen who left Long Beach to serve in Vietnam. Most of them served their year and returned home, a few of them wounded; a few of them did not return. Ray was one of them: he was 24 years old when he was killed in action on March 19, 1969. On April 20, 1970, HM2 David Robert “Bobby” Ray was awarded the Medal of Honor in the White House. Accepting the award from Vice President Spiro Agnew was Ray’s father.
The citation accompanying Ray’s award pays tribute to his battlefield actions and courage: “Undaunted by intense hostile fire, HM2 Ray moved from parapet to parapet, rendering emergency medical treatment to the wounded.”
While treating the wounded, Ray was himself wounded. In defending his patients, he killed one of two enemy soldiers and wounded another. In a final act of heroism and out of ammunition, Ray placed himself upon the wounded Marine when an enemy grenade landed near him. Ray died of his wounds; the Marine survived.
Among the many posthumous awards with which he was honored, arguably the most memorable was the naming of a Navy warship, a destroyer, after him: USS David. R. Ray (DD-971).
‘Grunt Padre,’ Servant of God
I never met Lt. Vincent R. Capodanno, Chaplain Corps, United States Navy. But as I do for David R. Ray, I remember and pray for him every Memorial Day. Like Ray, he was by the terms of the Geneva Convention technically a non-combatant. While both men had the mission of bring healing and mercy to the battlefield, both men were warriors who went into harm’s way to do their duty.
And like Ray, Capodanno — affectionately and admiringly dubbed the “grunt padre” by his comrades — was serving with Marines in combat when he made the ultimate sacrifice on Sept. 4, 1967, as attested to in the citation noting the actions that brought him the Medal of Honor: Father Capodanno, serving with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division “ … left the relative safety of the Company Command Post and ran through an area raked with fire. … Disregarding the intense enemy small-arms, automatic weapons and mortar fire, he moved about the battlefield administering the last rites and giving medical aid to the wounded.” Capodanno would himself be wounded as he moved about the battlefield and would die trying to aid a mortally wounded corpsman.
The closing words of his citation well sum up his actions: “By his heroic conduct on the battlefield, and his inspiring example, Lt. Capodanno upheld the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the cause of freedom.”
Among other honors, the padre also had a warship named after him: USS Capodanno (FF-1093). It became the first U.S. Navy ship to receive a Papal Blessing, by John Paul II on Sept. 4, 1981, the 14th anniversary of Capodanno’s death.
What might become the greatest honor for the former Maryknoll Missionary priest turned Navy chaplain would be his canonization as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. That process, while underway, could be a long time in coming to fruition. Canonization is a four-step process for the candidate: Servant of God; Venerable; Blessed (beatification); and Sainthood. In simple terms: many are called; few are chosen. A candidate’s cause for canonization can be a very lengthy process, lasting years or even decades, with no guarantee that it will bring sainthood.
Spearheading Capodanno’s cause is Archbishop Timothy Broglio, U.S. Military Services. In 2006, the Congregation for Saints honored Capodanno with the first step: Servant of God. The Father Capodanno Guild, a private Catholic organization 4,000 members strong, also champion’s the cause. But in 2022, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (acting as actual, honest-to-God “devil’s advocates”) suspended Capodanno’s cause.
In its April 24, 2026, edition, Our Sunday Visitor, a weekly Catholic newspaper, gave a brief update on the status of his cause. There were concerns about obedience to his superiors (the Maryknolls); was his final sacrifice a “spiritual offer from the heart” or “simply a patriotic gesture”?
To answer concerns such as those, Broglio put together a second commission that responded in May 2024. Now the dicastery’s response is expected very soon. In the meantime, the Father Capodanno Guild has been praying for his cause — including with a novena (nine days) of prayers, from March 30 through April 7.
Take some time May 25 to remember the men and women who, like Father (Padre) Vincent Capodanno and HM2 David “Bobby” Ray, made the ultimate sacrifice for comrades and country.
John 13:13-15: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
— Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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