Chaplain Ambrosio Salazar Grandea, Methodist, arrived in Vietnam in November 1966. He was conducting a worship service for men of the 4th Infantry Division on 25 May 1967 when he was wounded by an enemy mortar round. After treatment in Vietnam, he was evacuated to a hospital at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

There, near his birthplace, Chaplain Grandea died only a few days later on 13 June 1967. The chaplain’s wife, Mrs. Jacinta Grandea, working as a nurse in… Baltimore, Maryland, had first been informed that his wounds were slight, but each new message carried reports of the growing seriousness of his condition. At her own expense, she left for the Philippines to be with him, but was stopped while changing planes in San Francisco by an officer who informed her of her husband’s death.

Six months later, 2 days before Christmas, Mrs. Grandea participated in a dual ceremony at Fort Meade, Maryland-after receiving the posthumous awards of her husband‘s Silver Star and Purple Heart, she was sworn in as an Army nurse. Mrs. Grandea volunteered with the stipulation that she be sent to Vietnam. “We are engaged in a tough war in Vietnam,” she said, “All of us have to do our little bit to end the task with success and honor.”¹

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¹ From the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Facebook page.

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