Father Tom
Many of my dad’s fellow soldiers recalled praying in the field with their battalion priest. Here are some excerpts from our book about the 5/7th Cav’s chaplain, Father Tom Widdel.
…Sometimes the log ships carried a chaplain accompanied by an assistant. The chaplain’s assistant carried a Gospel, chalice, the body and blood of Christ, and all things necessary for a proper field service—as well as an M-16 rifle, as he was also tasked with protecting the chaplain, who traveled unarmed.
Military chaplains are unique from their civilian counterparts in that they minister to soldiers of all different faiths, regardless of their own. Many soldiers find Jesus during basic training, mostly to avoid their sergeants and work detail on Sundays. In the fields of Vietnam, service wasn’t necessarily held on Sunday but rather whenever the chaplain could make it there. The services were held at their encampment or outpost, typically improvising an altar with boxes of C-Rations or ammunition. Each chaplain served the spiritual needs of an entire battalion scattered over three thousand square miles. The services were short on ceremony but meaningful to those who attended.
Father Tom Widdel and combat medic Tom Monnier
One chaplain of the 1st Air Cavalry, CPT Henry Hilliard, conducted over five hundred services in the field. He earned his Air Medal—awarded for performing twenty-five air assaults—several times over and two Bronze Stars for Valor. He was also awarded the Soldier’s Medal for rescuing a wounded pilot from the flames of his burning helicopter.
Firebase Mary had a small roofless chapel built by the artillerymen who manned the outpost. Named in honor of the patron saint of the artillery, Saint Barbara’s Chapel was surrounded by a small picket fence. A row of little wooden benches served as pews, and on its altar of stained ammo boxes was placed a brass cross carved from a 105mm canister.
The 5/7th Cav’s chaplain was a Catholic priest, Major Thomas Widdel. Both a soldier and a priest, he was built more like an NFL linebacker, but his manner was more that of a priest. In his mid-forties, he wore glasses and a receding hairline. He wore the same jungle boots and uniform as those he ministered to, with a clerical stole draped over his broad shoulders. He carried their confessions, prayers, and petitions, and offered them up to the Lord. In the 5/7th’s Alpha Company, combat medic Tom Monnier recalled giving his confessions to Father Tom and how his altar was made of water cans.
Father Tom and assistant, photo by Marvin Bierschbach
When not holding services in the field, Father Tom stayed at his tent at LZ English, a major outpost near Bong Son with an airfield and field hospital. This is where most of the dead and wounded of the 5/7th Cav were flown into from the field. He requested to be notified of any incoming casualties.
Father Tom’s fellow officer Bernard Grady notes the irony of a chaplain in the war zone in his own memoir, On the Tiger’s Back.
“To me,” Grady writes, “a chaplain at work in the Vietnam bush was a confusion of symbols, contrasts, and contradictions. The country is lush, green, and truly beautiful; but irregularly across its face there are ugly scars of bare earth, dusty landing zones and fire bases gouged violently into the landscape—an area of craters, bunkers and shattered tree stumps. The country is underdeveloped, yet invaded by the most highly developed, powerful nation on earth, possessing all the trappings of warfare gone high-tech. Into that mix of beauty and the destruction which defiles it comes the chaplain…”
Bernard Grady also tells of the many trips he made to the medical tents at LZ English with the chaplain. Often waiting as the medevac chopper or “dustoff” landed, Father Tom would be there to comfort the wounded, most of whom were only half his age.
Last in the row of medical tents at LZ English was the Graves Registration unit, also known as the morgue. Parked outside the Graves Registration tent was a refrigerated truck used for storing the bodies of the dead until they began their journey home. This tent is where the dead were first brought and where Grady and Father Tom often found themselves. Graves Registration could usually identify the dead by their dog tags. Still, military regulation required two individuals to positively identify each body. “Frequently, identification was not easy,” writes Grady. “Men who die violently are often difficult to recognize.”
Although identifying the dead of his flock was not the chaplain’s official duty, it became a rather routine one.
From August 1966 to August 1967, the 5/7th Cav would suffer ninety-six killed in action. Throughout the battalion’s operating area—atop the hills and in the valleys, amid fields of elephant grass and rice paddies, and in the deepest depths of the jungle—Father Tom would hold memorial services for each of them among the men they had served with.
In October 1966, Father Tom held a service in the field for Alpha Company. That night, my dad’s platoon sergeant came to him with an unusual question. SSG Donald Burtis stood before him with PFC Bruce Madison, asking if he could teach them how to pray. As darkness fell upon them, the three skytroopers joined hands and bowed their heads as Will led them in the same prayer Jesus taught his disciples. He wrote this letter home the next day.
12 October ’66 – 41 weeks left
Dear Folks,
Did you ever hear of our Operation Thayer? There have been about three thousand killed in this operation so far. Life here seems so cheap. But the village people are always happy to see us. Some of these people are Catholic. In this hut, they had a picture of Christ and Mary. Thing is, they both had slanted eyes. Went to Mass yesterday, the fourth time since I was back on leave. I go every time I get a chance—well, everybody goes now.
My platoon sergeant is Catholic and told me before Mass started that he never was to church in twenty years. He mentioned about confession, and I encouraged him to go, and he did—received communion also. Last night, I pulled guard with him and Madison and had to teach him some prayers. He wears a rosary around his neck now. I think everyone says his night prayers out here.
Just waiting as a reaction force today. It’s been almost a year since I’ve been in the Army. Doesn’t seem like it. Seems more like a hundred years since I was back in Fort Leonard Wood. Boy, what changes I went through since high school days. I read in the last newspaper you sent that Melvin got picked up for a traffic fine. Ha!
Will
March 27th 1967, Father Tom saying mass for Alpha Company near the Bong Son Bridge before their return to the An Lao Valley
Father Tom Widdel had sailed to Vietnam aboard the USNS Gaffey with the original soldiers of the 5/7th Cav in August 1966. Those who made it to the end of their one-year tour, including my dad, would fly home on a “freedom bird” in August 1967. But rather than going home with the rest of the original battalion, Father Tom chose to stay for another year, preaching to the living, comforting the wounded, and positively identifying the dead.