DOB/DOD: September 11, 1929 (New York, NY) – November 8, 1966; 37 years old
RELIGION: Roman Catholic
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
COLLEGE: Maryknoll Seminary in Ossining, New York. Ordained in 1965.
SERVICE NUMBER: O-2319698
ENLISTMENT: 1965
MILITARY OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY: 5310, Chaplain
TOUR START DATE: June 13, 1966
UNIT: Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Brigade, 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division
CASUALTY LOCATION: Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam
ON THE WALL: Panel 12E, Line 43
FAMILY: Born to Michael J. (1901-1976) and Margaret A. McGowan Quealy (1902-1992). Three sisters, Margaret E. (1928-1971), Grace Quealy Callahan (1931-), and Theresa A. Quealy Lavelle (1939-1984).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Silver Star Medal and Purple Heart Medal.
CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed by small arms fire.
Citation to accompany the award of the Silver Star Medal
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pride in presenting the Silver Star (Posthumously) to Captain (Chaplain’s Corps) Michael Joseph Quealy (ASN: 0-2319698), United States Army, for gallantry in action involving close combat against an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam. Chaplain Quealy distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions on 8 November 1966, while serving as Chaplain with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, on a combat mission in the Republic of Vietnam. Against the advice of senior officers at field headquarters in Dau Tieng, Chaplain Quealy insisted on boarding a helicopter of medics and troop reinforcements flying to the relief of the 1st Battalion, under attack in War Zone C northwest of Saigon. Landing at the battle site, Chaplain Quealy checked at the battalion command post to learn where the heaviest fighting was, and rushed to the field to assist with the wounded and give Last Rites to the dying. He saw one seriously wounded man some distance away from the main group and crawled to his side under intense fire from three enemy automatic weapons. By the time he arrived, the man had died, but Chaplain Quealy administered Last Rites and then noticed another wounded soldier and went to him. While he was kneeling by that soldier’s side, a Viet Cong soldier stepped out from the brush and fired at the chaplain with a machine gun, mortally wounding him in the chest and abdomen. Chaplain Quealy’s extraordinary heroism in close combat against an enemy force is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 1st Infantry Division, and the United States Army.
Illustration by William S. Smith, which appeared with the article by Thomas J. Fleming, in The National Newspaper Magazine, March 26, 1967.
From Time Magazine, November 18, 1966
CHAPLAIN’S DEATH
As a boy, Michael Joseph Quealy of Manhattan dreamed of becoming a missionary in Asia, and it was in Asia last week that he died. Father Quealy, 37, a Roman Catholic priest for ten years, volunteered for duty as an Army chaplain and was shipped out last January to South Vietnam. Assigned to the 1st Division, Quealy — against the advice of senior officers at field headquarters in Dau Tieng — insisted on boarding a helicopter of medics and troop reinforcements flying to the relief of the Big Red One’s 1st Battalion, under attack in War Zone C northwest of Saigon. Landing at the battle site, Father Quealy hurriedly gave last rites to dying soldiers from a platoon of B Company. Just then, a Viet Cong soldier stepped out from the brush, fired at the chaplain with a machine gun. Within moments, Quealy was dead. From his pocket fell his diary; the last entry was a passage copied out from the Gospel according to Matthew: “So will my heavenly Father treat you unless each of you forgives his brother with all his heart.”
PRESS RELEASE: Information Office, 1st Infantry Division, APO 96345
Rel No. 1484-11-66
November 16, 1966
DI AN, RVN, (1st INF DIV IO) – It was a short ride from Soui Da to the battle area, but the fighting was so intense on November 8th that the Dust Off chopper was forced to circle the “clearing” for more than an hour. “When we finally went in,” the pilot remembered, “we were being fired at from three sides. I don’t know how we ever got out. But Father jumped out and helped load on the first wounded. I never saw him again.”
Chaplain (Captain) Michael Quealy of New York City joined the Army in early 1965 because he wanted to serve the soldier who had no time to search for the Sacraments. He knew that if there is no priest to celebrate the Mass, to serve Communion, to hear Confessions, to anoint the sick, then the soldier will go into battle and perhaps into eternity, spiritually unarmed. And Father Quealy did not want that to happen.
Commissioned as a First Lieutenant, Father Quealy underwent training at the U. S. Army Chaplain School, then was assigned to Fort Ord, California. In January 1966, he was promoted to Captain. In June, he was assigned to Vietnam, to the 1st Infantry Division.
Serving with the 2nd and, more recently, the 3rd Brigades, Father Quealy gradually formulated a solution to the question he was forever asking: How can I be sure to be in the right place at the right time? He rode the Dust Off medical evacuation helicopters into the battle area, then, when there was more than one wounded, would jump off into the action, there to help treat and evacuate the wounded, to pray with the injured, give Extreme Unction to the dying, and to console the shaken survivors.
He had seen battle in Operation El Paso, Operation Shenandoah, and, finally, in Operation Attleboro. For him, the battle of November 8 differed only in the way it ended.
“He was talking to the wounded who were lying on litters around the Command Post. Bullets were coming from everywhere, but he kept going from one man to another, doing his job,” said one lieutenant.
“He asked me where the most action was,” a sergeant recalled. “Then I saw him run right down there and start pulling the wounded out. I know at least five of those guys owe their lives to him.”
“The bravest man I have ever seen, said Jack Whitted, the commander of the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry. A soldier who was near him when he died explained how it was: “There were three machine guns firing at us down in this corner. One of them got Father Mike, and he fell, right on the edge of the battle area.” And so, trying to save a soldier’s life and soul, Father Michael Quealy was killed.
“Greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” “As long as you did it for one of these, the least of my brethren, you did it for Me.”
From vvmf.org February 24, 2014 by Eugene Tuttle
My battalion was near Father Quealy’s the day he was killed in Tay Ninh province on November 8, 1966. The terrible news reached me the next day. He had heard my confession in Lai Khe about a month earlier. Young men dying was bad enough, but it seemed like a sacrilege for a priest to be killed while providing comfort to the wounded and dying. I had met him months earlier on my first full day in the field, when, before boarding our tanks and APCs to be sent out as “bait” until reinforcements could rescue us, Chaplain Quealy invited the Catholics among us to join him. He told us that reconnaissance had just confirmed the VC were dug in and waiting for us in the bush. He then draped his stole over his shoulders, reminding us that an Act of Contrition could substitute for confession when one was in immediate danger of death. It was an unforgettably dramatic moment, and the chaplain was an unforgettably kind man. I regret just learning of this opportunity now to pay long overdue homage to him. God bless his soul!
Buried at Saint Raymond’s New Cemetery, 2600 Lafayette Avenue, Bronx, New York; St Joseph Section, Range 29, Grave 13. Photo by Jeff DeWitt.
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