Author Archives: Daryl Densford
Chaplain Vincent Capodanno, KIM (Killed in Ministry)
On this day in 1967, Navy Chaplain Vincent Capodanno was on patrol with the Marines he was serving with in Vietnam when they were ambushed by enemy forces. Chaplain Capodanno continued to minister to the Marines under fire, until he was finally cut down by enemy fire. Here is his story:
Early Ministry
“The American involvement in World War II impacted Vincent personally with three of his brothers serving in the military and fostered in him a profound patriotism and overt faith. Often before classes at Curtis High School, Vincent attended daily Mass at his home parish, a practice he continued after graduation and during his undergraduate years at Fordham University. While on a spiritual retreat in 1949 he confided to a close friend and fellow student his vocational desire.
“Like many young adults of that era, Vincent was familiar with the missionary work of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society, the Maryknolls, through their magazine, The Field Afar. In following his call to share his faith by responding to peoples’ needs in Foreign Service, he applied to Maryknoll and received acceptance in 1949.
“After nine years of intensive preparation in theology, academics, and basic survival tactics to fulfill the order’s mission to ‘Go and Teach All Nations,’ Vincent completed his seminary training and was ordained in 1958 by Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York. Accompanied by the tolling of the seminary’s bell, an annual tradition of the departure service, Father Capodanno learned his destination: Taiwan. He arrived on the island in 1959, and immediately began studying the difficult language and acclimating to the culture of his future parishioners, the Hakka-Chinese. While serving that community, Father Capodanno administered the sacraments, taught native catechists, and distributed food and medicine. Although he struggled while trying to fully understand their language, he developed a subsequent ability to attentively listen in responding to his parishioners.
“In the fall of 1960, he became the director of a youth hostel for young Chinese men preparing for the national college entrance exam. Besides overseeing their scholastic training, Father Capodanno was responsible for their spiritual and emotional needs, a significant challenge as the intense competition for college acceptance promoted depression and temptation of suicide. Several other short assignments occurred within six years followed by a six-month furlough and home visit. After returning to Taiwan, his superiors transferred Father Capodanno to Hong Kong, a decision he did not expect nor desire but which elicited a new response to God’s call of service.” (1)
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In Vietnam
“By acknowledging a totally different vocational ministry, he sought permission to join the Navy Chaplain Corps intending to serve the increasing number of Marine troops in Vietnam. Eventually Maryknoll granted this request, and after finishing Officer Candidate School, during Holy Week of 1966, Father Capodanno reported to the 7th Marines in Vietnam. As the chaplain for the battalion, his immediate focus was the young enlisted troops or “Grunts.” Later transferred to a medical unit, Father Capodanno was more than a priest ministering within the horrific arena of war.
Continue reading at Chaplain Vincent Capodanno, MoH Winner …
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A Prayer of Benediction for Chaplain Dale Goetz
Seven years ago yesterday (30 August 2010), Chaplain Dale Goetz was killed in Afghanistan ministering to his Soldiers. Not wanting to forget his sacrifice, I’m posting this short prayer I prayed at a Memorial Ceremony for him at the U.S. Army Chaplain Center and School.
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FT. JACKSON, SC (3 Sep 10) – Recently, the Chaplain Corps lost one of its finest chaplains, Chaplain (CPT) Dale Goetz, in Afghanistan. We received the news here at the Chaplain School while attending the Chaplain Captain’s Career Course. Since many of us knew Dale, and the rest of us felt the camaraderie of a “Brother in Arms,” we felt it appropriate to have a Memorial Service for him. My part was to pray the benediction. As I prepared the prayer, I felt very impressed that Dale needed to be remembered. His sacrifice needed to be remembered. As I post it here, I pray it again . . .
Our most Gracious God and Father,
We thank you for your presence and love which helps us to endure through difficult times. We thank you for moments like these when we don’t have to be alone but can gather among brothers and sisters in the faith. We thank you for the peace that you have brought us today, your peace—that can exist within us even when all around us there is no peace.
As much as you comfort us who have gathered here today, we pray that in an even greater measure you will comfort Dale’s family, especially his wife Christy and their three sons Landon, Caleb and Joel. Be for them all that they need you to be just now and continue to provide for them in every way in the days, weeks, months and years ahead that they face life without their husband, father and son.
Finally Lord, we pray that you will bring real peace to our land, so that we can rest in safety and comfort and not have to send our sons and daughters into harm’s way. Bring to us, we humbly ask you, the time when parents don’t have to grieve the loss of their children killed in war; hasten the day when spouses don’t have to say goodbye to their loved ones because they serve their country; provide for us, dear Father, a world whose children do not have to grow up fatherless because of the sin that envelopes us; and be victorious, Almighty God, over the Evil One, establish your Kingdom on Earth finally and forever, that we may enjoy your loving and peaceful presence for all eternity.
Go with us now, Lord we pray, as we reluctantly return to the world out there. Please don’t let us soon forget our brother Dale but help us to honor his sacrifice through our lives lived for your glory and Christ’s life lived through us.
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Heb 13:20-21)
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Religion Follows the Troops
Chaplain Robert P. Canis Describes How Religion Follows the Troops
Washington, D.C. [ca. 1945] – Chaplain Robert P. Canis now assigned to a general hospital in Europe has described to the General Commission on Army and Navy Chaplains, Washington, D.C. how he has conducted services in strange and inconvenient places. He pays high tribute to the response given to spiritual matters by American men in uniform. Chaplain Canis said:
“Three weeks after arriving in England, I was assigned to a general hospital. Our chapel was a Nissen hut completely furnished with every aid to worship. In May we took leave of it and ever since have worshiped in a chapel in the fields. In our England staging area that chapel was a long tent with mother earth for pews and a rough board covered with the chaplain’s blanket for an altar.
“On our last Sunday in England this chapel became the scene of a most unusual departure Communion Service. All else was already on its way across the channel. A few hymn books, and a field organ borrowed from a neighboring hospital chaplain constituted the equipment of our tent filled with officers, nurses and enlisted men seeking that extra bit of spiritual strength needed on the shores of Normandy. But in spite of the absence of every traditional touch of a normal chapel service, the atmosphere seemed more alive with honest faith than ever before. Members of all denominations came to the altar to receive the Communion. Some knelt, some stood, and some cupped their hands to receive the bread. Others received it directly in their mouths. While still others served themselves.
Continue reading this article, Religion Follows the Troops…
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Lackland Air Force Base Chaplains’ Program-1950’s
About five years after the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as a separate department of the War Department (Department of Defense by then), the Chaplains’ Department of Lackland Air Force Base, home of the Center of Basic Airmen Indoctrination and the Air Force Officer Candidate School, published a brochure which briefly describes the Chaplain Program of the base. The brochure includes some interesting pictures of religious support operations on Lackland (author’s collection).
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Army Chaplain Corps Posters
In the 1980s the Army Chaplain Corps produced a number of 24″ x 36″ “motivational” posters that were apparently distributed to unit chaplains to hang in their areas. When I was enlisted in the ’80s, serving at Fort Riley, KS, I remember seeing a couple of these hanging in the HHC Orderly Room of DIVARTY, 1st ID. Here are four that I recently came across (author’s collection).
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See the rest of the posters by following this link to the “Posters” page.
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In God is our Trust
There’s an old saying, “there are no atheists in foxholes” but any chaplain will tell you there are. Combat has a way of either solidifying one’s faith, pushing one toward faith, or unfortunately, damaging the faith a person deployed with. Nevertheless, chaplains exist to support Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen wherever they are (geographically and spiritually) and to provide for their religious expression in combat or at home station.
During World War Two, chaplains were just as active providing worship opportunities for Service Members deployed into harms way. An August 1944 two-page spread in Yank Magazine illustrates this well:
“…In God is our Trust”
“The nearer men get to the front, the less time they have for anything but fighting. All else goes by the board-except an intensified religious feeling, a feeling to which countless letters and dispatches written in foxholes have testified. And so, as is evident in these pictures from the battlefronts of the world, Yanks who can barely manage to spare a few moments to eat or sleep still manage to lay down their arms long enough to worship.”
Click here to continue reading this article with nine more pictures of worship on the front lines…
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In Flanders Fields
IN FLANDERS FIELDS POEM
The World’s Most Famous WAR MEMORIAL POEM
By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the dead: Short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved: and now we lie
In Flanders fields!Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you, from failing hands, we throw
The torch: be yours to hold it high
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields(Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium)
On May 2, 1915, John McCrae’s close friend and former student Alexis Helmer was killed by a German shell. That evening, in the absence of a Chaplain, John McCrae recited from memory a few passages from the Church of England’s “Order of the Burial of the Dead”. For security reasons Helmer’s burial in Essex Farm Cemetery was performed in complete darkness.
The next day, May 3, 1915, Sergeant-Major Cyril Allinson was delivering mail. McCrae was sitting at the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the YserCanal, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, Belgium.
As John McCrae was writing his In Flanders Fields poem, Allinson silently watched and later recalled, “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”
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Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
Within moments, John McCrae had completed the “In Flanders Fields” poem and when he was done, without a word, McCrae took his mail and handed the poem to Allinson.
Allinson was deeply moved:
“The (Flanders Fields) poem was an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene.”
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Text used by Permission courtesy of www.flandersfieldsmusic.com
Photo of “No-man’s land” in the public domain
Photo of newspaper picture of Alexi Hannum Helmer, from the “McGill Honour Roll, 1914-1918”. McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, 1926, found at the Canadian Virtual War Memorial, a website of the Veterans Affairs Canada, accessed 29 May 2017
Photo of LTC John McCrae, – Guelph Museums, Reference No. M968.354.1.2x, in the public domain
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Chaplain Hill Captures Three Enemy Pickets
On this day (16 May) in 1863, Chaplain James Hill engaged the enemy and without injury or death captured three enemy pickets, which eventually earned him the Medal of Honor. Here’s the story:
1LT James Hill (21st Iowa Infantry) for capturing enemy pickets at the Battle of Champion Hill in May 1863 (at the time, he was serving as an infantry lieutenant – later he would become his regiment’s chaplain).
“In the waning hours of the battle, Lt. Hill was returning from a foraging mission through dense woods. He came upon three armed Confederate pickets. In his words:
“I realized at once that I had gotten myself into a nasty position. I instantly . . .ordered the… Johnnies to ‘ground arms!’ They obeyed. Then slightly turning my head, I addressed an imaginary guard in the brush with a hasty order to ‘halt… and then gave the order to my prisoners: ‘Single file, march’ and to my imaginary guard: ‘Forward March.’ I hurried toward the command at good speed.”
His quick thinking and ingenuity provided a peaceful solution to a deadly encounter.”
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Source: http://www.iowahistory.org/shsi/museum/exhibits/medal-of-honor/hill_james_cw/index.htm (cited on the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Facebook page).
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Helping Vets
On this third anniversary of The Chaplain Kit, I thought that it would be a good time to introduce a new initiative that is needed in the military/veteran community. I often see posts from an organization in Las Vegas which I support, that they have an urgent financial or material need for a homeless or in-need veteran. I always try to help but my personal resources are limited. I also realize that for every “call to action” from Caridad, there are certainly dozens or likely even hundreds of other immediate needs across the country to care for former Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsman who need a little help in a hurry. While there are many organizations out there that provide assistance for Veterans, often those wheels move slowly and/or are not available in the “immediate” timeframe needed to help them be ready for a job interview, get a place to live, or even have food to eat today. I would like to have a fund that can quickly be dispersed to legitimate and certified “charities” when there’s a call to action for an immediate, and limited, need to help a Veteran.
I reasoned that chaplains, and others who are interested in the ministry of chaplains (visitors to The Chaplain Kit), are likely to be among the most compassionate givers around, so anticipate that this can be a tremendous ministry drawing from the hundreds of people who view The Chaplain Kit every month. So, The Chaplain Kit is beginning The Offering Plate as a place for interested people to contribute to a fund which can be quickly disbursed through recognized charities to help veterans with an immediate need.
This fund will not be used for development or maintenance of The Chaplain Kit website, collections, exhibits, advertising or anything related to The Chaplain Kit; to promote or evangelize for a particular faith group; to establish, develop or support charities or ministries; or anything other than the stated purpose of the fund.
This fund will be used to quickly get money to recognized charities when a call to action goes out for a limited, immediate and urgent financial or material need for a veteran or veterans. Funds from The Offering Plate will go directly to meet the need of the veteran (through a recognized charity) and not into the charity’s general or administrative funds.
Official 501 (c)(3) status will be pursued, as well as membership in a financial accountability organization such as the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, to provide accountability and transparency in regard to receipts and distributions. From the beginning, The Offering Plate page will have publically available receipts and disbursements as well as any “testimonials” received from recipients, so donors and interested visitors can see exactly what has come into the fund and what has gone out.
Very soon, a new widget with links will show up on The Chaplain Kit Facebook page and website. Readers are encouraged to keep up with what The Chaplain Kit is able to do through The Offering Plate and, as you are able, contribute to this important and vital fund to help our veterans.
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Photo of homeless veteran from The Blaze website. The caption read: “In this Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013 photo, homeless Korean War veteran Thomas Moore, 79, left, speaks with Boston Health Care for the Homeless street team outreach coordinator Romeena Lee on a sidewalk in Boston. (AP/Steven Senne)”
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Celebrating Three Years!
It has been three years since The Chaplain Kit went live. That first month (April 2014) there were just 32 views dipping to just 8 in May then 11 in June! From then on, visitors have consistently increased until in November 2015 it hit over 1000 page views per month, then this past April (2017) it topped 3000! There have been over 44,000 page views since the beginning, viewed by nearly 20,000 visitors from all 50 U.S. states as well as from 122 different countries including China, Iran and Vatican City! It has been fun collecting, researching and posting, not to mention the many people I have met and gotten to know through The Chaplain Kit, both the website and the Facebook page. I hope that the materials and information on the site have been beneficial (and maybe even a blessing) to those of you who have found your way here. Thank you for your support of the ministry of chaplains evidenced by your visits to The Chaplain Kit, your “likes” and your shares!
The Chaplain Kit 