Jerry Autry, Gun-totin' Chaplain: A True Memoir. Airborne Press, 2006. 301 pp. Autry served as a chaplain with the 101st Airborne Division, 1968-69.
Bradley L. Carter, "Reverence helmeted and armored': A study of twentieth-century United States military chaplain memoirs." Ph.D. dissertation, American Studies, University of Kansas, 2004. 350 pp. AAT 3148865. The text is available online if you are browsing the Internet through an institution that has paid for a subscription to ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.
Chaplain (Lt. Col.) William G. Devanny, USA, "The Ecumenical Movement and the Military" Military Review, March 1967 (vol. XLVII, no. 3), pp. 28-34. Devanny was very worried about the anti-military attitude of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and other more or less pacifist religious organizations.
Faith DeVeaux, When Duty Calls. San Jose, California: Writer's Club Press (iUniverse), 2000. This is basically a collection of letters by African Methodist Episcopal chaplain John DeVeaux, Jr., to his family while he was in Vietnam. But his daughter, when publishing them, changed names and also added a fictional family crisis.
Joseph P. Dulany, Once a Soldier: A Chaplain's Story. (Self-published? 2002?) 203 pp. Two chapters are devoted to Dulany's two tours as a chaplain in Vietnam: 1967-68 based at Qui Nhon, and 1969-70 with the 2d Brigade of the 1st Cav.
J. Robert Falabella, Vietnam Memoirs: A Passage to Sorrow. New York: Pageant Press International, 1971. 154 pp. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2010. 136 pp. Falabella served a one-year tour, 1967-68, as a Catholic Chaplain with the 25th Infantry Division.
Larry Haworth, Tales of Thunder Run: The convoys, the noise, the ambushes... stories of QL 13, the Route 66 of Viet Nam. Eugene, Oregon: ACW Press, 2004. 190 pp. Haworth served two tours as a chaplain in Vietnam. This book says relatively little about the first, 1967-68, at Soc Trang with the 11th Combat Aviation Battalion. Mostly it is about his 1969-70 tour as a Captain with the 11th Armored Cavalry in III Corps.
"History of the Chaplains." Oral histories under this project were collected by the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. Copies were deposited in the Army's Military History Institute. Many of these have been placed online in the Chaplains Oral History Papers section of the Army Heritage Collection Online. It used to be possible to link directly to items in this collection, but those links no longer work. From the main page, click on Manuscripts/Archives > Browse > Browse ALL digital Documents by historical time period > Vietnam War (primarily 1964-1975) > Chaplains Oral History Papers.
Major Joel Earl Andrews, oral history interview conducted 1972. 62 pp. Most of this (pp. (3-40) is devoted to Andrews's quite early (Feb 1962 to Feb 1963) tour in Vietnam, as a chaplain with the 39th Signal Battalion, which was sent to Vietnam with great secrecy to establish communications systems. Based at Tan Son Nhut but with quite a bit of travelling.
Al Arvay, oral history interviews conducted 1973. 13 pp. Arvay, a Catholic chaplain, a Captain, was in Vietnam February 1967 to March 1968, attached to the 23rd Artillery Group, based at Phu Bai.
Major General Charles E. Brown, oral history interview conducted 1985. 47 pp. This oral history is primarily devoted to Vietnam. Brown became Chief of Chaplains in 1962. He thinks (p. 46) that the United States could have finished the Vietnam War in six months.
Chaplain John Evans, oral history interviews conducted in 1985. 35 pp. Evans was an Episcopalian chaplain. His Vietnam tour (early 1970s, attached to the 5th Transportation Command based at Danang) begins on p. 12. There were some pretty serious disciplinary problems in the unit.
Sergeant Major Theodore G. Huggins, oral history interview. 18 pp. Huggins was in Vietnam as a Sergeant First Class, Feb 1971 to Feb 1972, working at the Religious Retreat Center at Cam Ranh Bay.
Major Harry P. Kissinger, oral history interviews conducted 1973. 37 pp. Kissinger was a chaplain with the 11th Brigade, Americal Division, at the time of the My Lai Massacre. Most of his work as with units further south than Task Force Barker, but he did minister to Charlie Company, the unit that perpetrated the massacre, to some extent. He says nobody in the unit mentioned the massacre to him.
Lt. Col. Saul Koss, oral history interviews conducted in 1985. 27 pp. Koss, a Jewish chaplain, went to Vietnam as a Captain in June 1972 and stayed until February 1, 1973. He was based at Long Binh, Saigon, and Tan Son Nhut, but flew around the country a lot.
Colonel Francis R. Lewis, oral history interviews conducted 1973. 46 pp. plus appendix. Lewis was the division chaplain for the Americal Division at the time of the My Lai Massacre. This interview starts with My Lai.
Colonel William Vincent O'Connor, oral history interviews conducted 1973. 72 pp. O'Connor, a Catholic chaplain, was at Fort Bragg 1962 to 1964, as a teacher at the MATA course and as a chaplain to the Special Forces. He served a tour as a chaplain at MACV from July 1971 to July 1972.
Major General Francis L. Sampson, oral history interview. 36 pp. Monsignor Sampson was Deputy Chief of Chaplains 1966-67, Chief of Chaplains 1967-71. The oral history is devoted almost entirely to Vietnam. Sampson had visited there for slightly less than a month every year.
Colonel Leonard F. Stegman, oral history interview. 17 pp. Stegman, a Catholic, was the USARV Chaplain from 1970 to 1971. Remarkable for the statement on p. 12 that the press "cost more lives than the enemy over there". He didn't explain what he meant, and the interviewer didn't ask.
Carroll Thorne, oral history interview. 23 pp. Thorne, a Catholic chaplain, went to Vietnam in July 1972 and stayed until March 1973. He was based at the 3d Field Hospital at Tan Son Nhut.
Samuel W. Hopkins, Jr., A Chaplain Remembers Vietnam. Kansas City, Missouri: Truman, 2002. xii, 292 pp. Hopkins served as a chaplain with the 4/60 Artillery, a duster unit in II Corps, 1967-68. Many large photos.
James M. Hutchens, Beyond Combat. Chicago: Moody, 1968. 128 pp. Hutchens went to Vietnam as a chaplain with the 70th Engineer Battalion in August 1965, transferred to the 173d Airborne Brigade, was wounded in the battle on Hill 65, War Zone D, November 8, 1965.
James D. Johnson, Combat Chaplain: A Thirty-Year Vietnam Battle. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2001. ix, 299 pp. Johnson arrived in Vietnam in mid 1967, and was assigned to the 3/60 Infantry (9th Division, Mobile Riverine Force) based at Dong Tam. For his last months in country (March-June 1968) he was at 9th Division HQ at Bear Cat.
Raymond Johnson, Postmark: Mekong Delta. Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1968. 96 pp. Letters written by a Navy chaplain who served in the Mekong Delta.
Earl C. Kettler, Chaplain's Letters: Ministry by "Huey" 1964-1965, The Personal Correspondence of an Army Chaplain from Vietnam. Cornelius Books, 1994.
Anne C. Loveland, Change and Conflict in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps since 1945. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2014. xiv, 349 pp.
Fr. Daniel L. Mode, The Grunt Padre: The Service & Sacrifice of Father Vincent Robert Capodanno, Vietnam 1966-1967. Oak Lawn, IL: CMJ Marian, 2000. 212 pp. Capodanno, the Navy chaplain of the 3/5 Marines (1st Marine Division), won the Medal of Honor for his death September 4, 1967, during Operation SWIFT in Quang Tin province. He has been proposed for canonization. The Marine Corps history volume by Telfer et. al. mistakenly spells his name Capadonno, Capodonna in places.
Claude D. Newby, It Took Heroes: A Chaplain's Story and Tribute to Combat Veterans and Those Who Waited for Them. Bonneville Book, 1998. 2d rev. ed. Bountiful, Utah: Tribute Enterprises, 2000. xi, 231 pp. The bulk of this tells the story of Newby's first tour in Vietnam as an Army chaplain (Mormon), September 1966 to September 1967, with the 1st Cavalry Division. He is the chaplain described under the pseudonym "Gerald Kirk" in the book Casualties of War by Daniel Lang, who helped bring to light a rape-murder committed by some soldiers of the 2/8 Cavalry in November 1966.
Claude D. Newby, It Took Heroes, volume II. Bountiful, Utah: Tribute Enterprises, 2000. xii, 320 pp. Covers Newby's second tour in Vietnam, March 1969 to March 1970, serving with the 1/5 Cavalry but also supporting some other units of the 1st Cav.
John J. O'Connor, A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam. New York: World, 1968. xvi, 256 pp. Commander O'Connor was a Navy chaplain who had served in Vietnam. His success in both his careers--he rose in the Navy to become a Rear Admiral and Chief of Chaplains, and in the Catholic Church to become Archbishop of New York, and Cardinal--makes this pro-war analysis especially interesting.
William M. Spake, Vietnam and "Chaplain Hoppy": VietNam, 1968, Letters from a Chaplain: 101st Airborne Division - "The Screaming Eagles" W.M. Spake, 2000.
Ronit Y. Stahl, Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and the State in Modern America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. 384 pp.
Whitt, Jacqueline Earline, "Conflict and compromise: American military chaplains and the Vietnam War." Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2008. ix, 318 pp. AAT 3304383
Jacqueline E. Whitt, Bringing God to Men: American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. xii, 298 pp.
Copyright © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2014, 2015, 2018, Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised April 14, 2018.