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Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno.
Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno conducts a field prayer service for the men of A Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines.
Episode 2740 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno and his Congressional Medal of Honor award. The featured story comes from The U.S. Department of Defense website and was titled: Medal of Honor Monday: Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno. It was submitted by Katie Lange, the outstanding writer for DOD News.
Lange, in her story, reported that Chaplains aren’t just religious advocates for service members. They’re also relied upon for moral and spiritual well-being, with an ability to be calm in the most harrowing of circumstances.
Only a handful of chaplains have earned the Medal of Honor. Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno, whose bravery and selflessness were exemplified during the Vietnam War, is one of them.
Lange added this about Vincent Capodanno, he was born on Staten Island, New York, in February 1929. He was the youngest of nine siblings and loved to volunteer throughout his community. He went to college for a year after high school, but eventually decided that his true calling was to serve others through God.
Capodanno quit school and joined the seminary. He was ordained as a priest in 1957. During the next eight years of his life, he would travel to Taiwan as a missionary, then to Hong Kong to teach disadvantaged children.
By the mid-1960s, America’s involvement in Vietnam had grown so much that Capodanno felt the urge to serve. So, in December 1965, he volunteered to become a commissioned officer in the Navy to work as a chaplain. In April 1966, Capodanno was sent to Vietnam to serve with the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment 1st Marine Division.
On Sept. 4, 1967, a 38-year-old Capodanno was with his Marines in South Vietnam’s Quang Tin province when his unit learned that another platoon was in danger of being overrun by enemy forces.
Listen to episode 2740 and discover more about Navy Lt. Vincent Capodanno and his Congressional Medal of Honor award.
