Ping to Pro, Abn and JJ!
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Posted on 05/20/2016 6:43:31 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
Forty-five years after he served as a U.S. Army chaplain in Vietnam, Redemptorist Father John Bauer continues to expand his admiration for the resourcefulness and resolve of the men and women who were under his pastoral care during wartime.
Father Bauer, now on the staff of his childhood parish in Highlandtown, is among a half-dozen Catholics featured in "Maryland Vietnam War Stories," a 3-hour documentary airing over as many nights, May 24-26, on Maryland Public Television.
Father Bauer was among the participants who attended a recent advance screening, where a fellow veteran noticed his clerical collar and approached him during a break.
"A total stranger," he related, "came up and said, 'Let me tell you a story.' He shared that when he was without a rosary, he would pray it using the 5 holes on each side of his M-16. "MPT interviewed hundreds of veterans for this series. I told them I was not a hero."
Father Bauer's record of service would argue otherwise.
Raised on South Highland Avenue, Father Bauer attended the parish school at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish, now the bilingual parish of Sacred Heart of Jesus-Sagrado Corazón de Jesus. The 88-year-old priest will celebrate the 60th anniversary of his ordination at its 10 a.m. Mass June 12.
Father Bauer was 42 and doing mission work in the Dominican Republic when, in response to an escalation of American forces in Vietnam, he volunteered to be an Army chaplain. After completing chaplain school at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, N.Y., and then basic training in Fort Dix, near Trenton, N.J., he was sent to Vietnam.
He celebrated Mass and brought the sacraments to the 4th Division in the central highlands, and then the 196th Light Infantry. Father Bauer traveled by jeep and was helicoptered in to even hotter zones.
He celebrated Easter Mass in 1970 "in the jungle, on my haunches, with the guys sitting around me."
Father Bauer's altar that day was an ammunition box. His Mass kit was lined with sponge to protect his chalice and paten; he removed the sponge and stuffed the kit with missalets and rosaries, "because the boys liked to wear them."
He does not romanticize war. One of his helicopter pilots was among the more than 58,000 American casualties of the Vietnam War. He served Mass at Fire support base Mary Ann, where "32 of our guys" were killed in a March 1971 attack.
Father Bauer will attend a tribute at the State Fairgrounds in Timonium June 18-19, where, he said, empty white chairs will symbolize the Marylanders who died in Vietnam.
His fellow Army chaplains included a New Yorker who would become archbishop of Baltimore, Cardinal Edwin F. O'Brien. The two rarely talked about their military service, however, as then-Archbishop O'Brien took in Yankees' games with Father Bauer, still the Catholic chaplain for the Baltimore Orioles.
Wayne "Mac" McNeir and Alan Philips are among the Archdiocese of Baltimore parishioners interviewed for the MPT documentary.
Phillips, a retired U.S. Army Colonel, is a Vermont native who retired a decade ago to Frederick County, where his family are members of Holy Family Catholic Community in Middletown. Commissioned from West Point in 1959, he spent 30 years as an infantry officer, including two tours in Vietnam.
Born and raised in South Baltimore, McNeir retired from the Marine Corps as a Master Sergeant. His Vietnam duty included two 13-month tours, in 1963-64 as a radio operator, and in 1967-68 as an aviation electronics technician and defense platoon sergeant.
Baptized at the former St. Joseph Parish on Lee Street, his retirement has included serving his current parish, St. Jane Frances de Chantal in Pasadena, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore as a docent.
In between, he assisted military chaplains.
"While I am not the most pious person one is likely to meet," he told the Catholic Review in an email, "I have always had a deep, abiding faith in God. Serving in Vietnam reinforced my dependence on a superior being, which probably afforded a greater degree of inner-peace than I would have otherwise had."
"Maryland Vietnam War Stories" will air on Maryland Public Television May 24-26, at 8 p.m. each night.
Father Bauer's altar that day was an ammunition box. His Mass kit was lined with sponge to protect his chalice and paten; he removed the sponge and stuffed the kit with missalets and rosaries, "because the boys liked to wear them."
"All gave some and some gave all." God bless Fr. John Bauer and God bless all that answered their nation's call in Vietnam.
Amen.
Father Bauer was 42 [when] he volunteered to be an Army chaplain
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Vet Ping.
Yes to that! I knew He was with me even in my darkest hours there.
But, we made it home, too many others did not, and I still mourn them.
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Ping!
I’m also a Vet and a former recipient of a free vacation to that jungle wonderland. I recently heard a caller to Rush’s show say that the American/Asian kids born of the GI and fun girl meetings were put into concentration camps. I’ve studied VN for years now and I know the central highlands are off limits to visitors supposedly due to sensitive religious issues.
Anyone have an opinion as to whether there are concentration camps full of halfbreeds in the central highlands of VN? I’ve been to VN many, many times since 1970 and seen only one Am/VN kid in all that time - that’s obviously not a correct representation.
“But, we made it home, too many others did not, and I still mourn them.”
Amen to that brother, Amen to that.
For the record, NKP_VET posted it.
NKP,
Thank you for posting this story about Chaplain (Father) Bauer
Thanks for the ping. A combat priest is a very special person. They can relate to veterans as no other priest can do, because they have been there.
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
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