DOB/DOD: January 3, 1936 (Morton, PA) – February 22, 1968; 32 years old
RELIGION: Roman Catholic
MARITAL STATUS: Unmarried
COLLEGE: Catholic University, and was ordained in the Marist order in 1962
SERVICE NUMBER: 722 522
ENLISTMENT: June 26, 1967, in Lafayette, Louisiana
NAVY RATE: 4105 = Staff Corps – Chaplain (Reserve)
UNIT: Headquarters and Service Company, 2nd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, Third Marine Amphibious Force.
CASUALTY LOCATION: Khe Sanh, Quang Tri Province
ON THE WALL: Panel 40E, Line 58
FAMILY: Born to Francis A. “Frank” (1906-1961) and Margaret J. Hannigan Brett (1906-1980). Two brothers, Joseph J. (1927-2012) and Francis X. [also an Army Chaplain and Catholic Priest] (1931-2017). Two sisters, Rosemary F. Brett Rouse (1932-2018), and Anastasia Brett Lawlor (1938-2022).
DECORATIONS: Awarded the Legion of Merit with Valor (citation needed), the Silver Star Medal, and the Purple Heart Medal
CIRCUMSTANCES: Father Robert R. Brett, S.M., a Catholic chaplain and Navy Lieutenant serving in Vietnam, gave his life for God and country on February 26, 1968, at age 33. He was killed in action by enemy mortar fire at the Khe Sanh Combat Base while waiting to celebrate Mass for U.S. Marines. Assigned with the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, Father Brett had been in Vietnam since late the previous September. Especially during the few days before his death, he traveled frequently between war-torn outposts. In addition to providing religious services and rites for Marines of his own faith, Lieutenant Brett provided services for personnel of other denominations and made himself available to all who sought his assistance, rendering spiritual aid and encouraging the men by his presence,” read Navy reports. Due to security, space, and staff restrictions, it was not possible for military personnel to gather in a large group, so Father Brett would go wherever he was needed. “During this time, he celebrated masses almost continuously up to 10 per day under these circumstances,” continued the correspondence. He was mortally wounded while in a bunker awaiting transportation to another area. [From catholicherald.com]
Attended St. Gabriel’s School, a pre-seminary school, for high school
Photo not available.
Catholic University Class of 1958
Namesake of Brett Hall at the Naval Chaplain’s School in Newport, Rhode Island. Dedicated on August 8, 2000.
Faculty at Chanel High School in Bedford, Ohio, 1962-1966
From Marist Magazine Fall 2018
REV. ROBERT R. BRETT, SM
U.S. NAVY CHAPLAIN
Article adapted from: Lark, Lisa A. All They Left Behind: Legacies of the Men and Women on the Wall. M.T. Publishing Company, Inc., 2012
During his time in Vietnam, Lt. Robert Raymond Brett, SM, always stood firm – firm in his faith, firm in his duty, and firm in his devotion to his men. He would be there to provide whatever care his Marines needed, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual, regardless of what was going on around him. That was why he had joined the Navy: to be where the men in combat needed him most. According to his family, Bob had always wanted to be a priest. Born in 1936, Bob and his four siblings, Joseph, Francis, Rosemary, and Anastasia, grew up in the Philadelphia area, where he attended Catholic schools before entering the seminary at St. Mary’s Manor in Pennsylvania. He made his profession in the Society of Mary in 1956 and then went on to study at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. He graduated with a bachelor’s in philosophy in 1958 and was ordained at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1962. Shortly thereafter, he earned a master’s degree in Latin.
Five years after his ordination, he realized that he needed to do more to support the men and women serving in Vietnam. He joined the Navy as a chaplain. After chaplaincy training in Newport, Rhode Island, and Marine training at Camp Pendleton, the now Lt. Robert Brett requested overseas duty and assignment to a Marine unit in Vietnam.
It was customary for each infantry battalion to be assigned a chaplain, and Father Brett was assigned to the 26th Marine Regiment stationed at Phu Bai. He arrived in Vietnam in September 1967 and moved to Khe Sanh with the 26th Regiment in January 1968. He was well-liked and highly regarded by the men he served. The men respected him because they saw him wherever they were, not only at the Masses he performed every Sunday. While his base was at Hill 558, where the 26th Regiment had their command post, it was common for Father Bob, as the Marines called him, to be out at the Marine positions, regardless of weather or enemy fire. In his book Walk With Me: A Vietnam Experience, Lt. Col. Jerry Kurth remembered the risks that Father Bob was willing to take to minister to the men of the 26th Regiment after they had suffered an attack that caused many casualties: “Around 7 a.m., a couple of choppers arrive at Hill 558 to pick up the replacements. Just as the last replacements board, Father Brett runs up to a chopper and tells the pilot that he will be accompanying the replacements. He never bothers to ask permission or seek approval; he just feels he is needed on Hill 861A after their ordeal.”
For most of Father Bob’s time in Vietnam, Private First Class (PFC) Alexander Chin could often be found right next to him. Chin was a 24-year-old PFC Marine from Maryland who, because of his religious beliefs, had transferred to a non-combatant post. He was not willing to take another life, but he stood by Father Bob and together they risked their lives ministering to their Marines. The two performed every conceivable religious duty, from baptisms and communions to confessions and last rites. As the base was being attacked, Father Bob would have to perform multiple Masses to make sure all could attend. He sometimes said Mass ten times a day, and each service was always packed. Kurth called him “utterly tireless as well as utterly fearless.” Before his death in 2011, Kurth told Father Bob’s family that Father Bob moved around to be with his troops, regardless of what any commanding officer ordered.
The Siege of Khe Sanh began in January 1968, just after Father Bob and the 26th Regiment had arrived in the area. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces attacked the Marine base on January 21, beginning a massive coordinated attack that would last for 77 days and take the lives of more than 200 American troops. As always, Father Bob was in the thick of the action, ministering to his Marines. On February 22, Father Bob and PFC Chin were at the Khe Sanh Combat Base awaiting helicopter transport back to the command post at Hill 558. Kurth had not wanted Father Bob to leave Hill 558 but relented when Father Bob accused him of “preventing him from doing his duty as a priest.” As the chopper landed and Father Bob and the others made their way to it, NVA rockets began hitting the base. As the rocket fire increased, Father Bob told the helicopter to take off. He headed back to the trenches, with Chin at his side. Almost immediately upon their arrival at the trench, a rocket struck directly on the trench. When the smoke of the rocket attack cleared, eight men lay dead in the trench, including Father Bob and Chin.
Father Bob was buried on the grounds of the seminary he had attended, and Chin was laid to rest in a family plot in Princess Anne, Maryland. In 1998, the Brett family moved Father Bob to Chaplain’s Hill in Arlington National Cemetery. As a sign of their gratitude for the faith, devotion, and courage of Chin, they petitioned to have him buried right beside the chaplain. In 1999, Chin was buried with full military honors on Chaplain’s Hill. Father Bob and Chin are side by side, just as they were so often in Vietnam.
From EvangelizationStation.com – article titled The Priest and the Marine
By Donald R. McClarey
Born on January 3, 1936, one of five kids, Robert R. Brett knew from an early age what he wanted to be. As his sister Rosemary Rouse noted, “He always wanted to be a priest. He was always there for everyone.”
He attended Saint Edmond’s and Saint Gabriel’s grade schools and then attended a preparatory seminary for high school. Brett entered the Marist novitiate at Our Lady of the Elms on Staten Island and made his profession of vows on September 8, 1956. Studying at Catholic University, he received a BA in philosophy in 1958 and a Master’s Degree in Latin in 1963. He was ordained a priest of the Society of Mary in 1962 by Bishop Thomas Wade at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
While teaching Latin at the Immaculata Seminary in Lafayette, Louisiana, in 1967, he decided to enlist in the Navy as a chaplain. Neither a hawk nor a dove on Vietnam, Father Brett believed that it was his duty to go where he was needed the most, and he decided that the men fighting in Vietnam needed him. He joined the Navy specifically to volunteer for combat duty in Vietnam with the Marines. (The Marine Corps, although many Marines choke to admit it, is part of the Department of the Navy, and receives their chaplains from the Navy.)
Father Brett was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Navy, and, after training at the Chaplain School in Newport, Rhode Island, and Marine combat training at Camp Pendleton, California, he arrived in Vietnam on September 15, 1967, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division. His goal was simple: wherever Marines in his unit were in danger, he was going to be there, to say Mass, give the Last Rites to the dying, and help the wounded. His own personal safety was simply going to have to take a back seat to this mission.
His superiors quickly realized that this priest was going to need an assistant and a guard since he was so intent on going into harm’s way. They assigned him Corporal Alexander Chin, a truly remarkable Marine.
Of African-American and Chinese ancestry, Corporal Chin had served in Vietnam for several months when he had a religious conversion. He announced that he could no longer kill the enemy, but that he had no problem still putting his life on the line for his country. Assistant and guard to a chaplain seemed like an appropriate assignment for this particular Marine.
Much of Father Brett’s service in Vietnam centered around the Battle for Khe Sanh. Situated in northwestern Quang Tri Province, Khe Sanh was next to the border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese sought to replicate their victory at Dien Bien Phu over the French in the 1950s ′s by massing several divisions and overrunning the Marines at Khe Sanh. They failed, and the Marines inflicted far more casualties on the North Vietnamese Army than they sustained. Intense fighting at Khe Sanh lasted from January 21, 1968, to April 8, 1968, and Chaplain Brett was in the thick of it, along with Corporal Chin.
His commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Kurth, recalled Father Brett in his book Walk With Me: A Vietnam Experience:
Our battalion is extremely fortunate to have an outstanding Chaplain to minister to our spiritual needs. Each infantry battalion in Vietnam has an assigned Chaplain to provide religious service to the men. The assignments are not done by religious denomination, but rather by one who is available at the time of a billet opening. Therefore, a unit could have a Methodist, Baptist, or Presbyterian minister, a Jewish Rabbi, or a Catholic Priest – whoever is due for assignment. They are a special type of religious leader – usually very down to earth, realistic, and straightforward men, as they would have to be to reach men in wartime circumstances, yet still very spiritual.
We happen to have a very personable Catholic priest, Father Robert Brett. He identifies with all the men and ministers to them constantly. On Sundays, he holds mass on a makeshift altar, and attendance is quite good. We obviously have to hold several services, so we do not weaken our overall defenses. The large attendance doesn’t surprise me, since every man feels threatened and seeks divine guidance and favor. My constant prayer, since even before I arrived in Vietnam, asks the Lord to grant me safe return to my family. I ask that he give me a future with my 5 ½ year-old son. It will be tragic if he grows up without a father, and I have missed some of his early years. I happen to be Catholic, so I attend all of Father’s services whenever possible.
Father Bob is totally dedicated to his job and truly wants to be there to watch after his community of men. He walks around our positions on Hill 558 with a small placard on the side of his helmet that says, “Some men wait to the 11th hour to believe, but they die at 10:30!”
On 5 Feb, he demonstrates just how far and at what risk he will go to perform his duties. Echo company on Hill 8651A is heavily attacked at 3 am, suffering numerous casualties. After both of the NVA assaults are repulsed, we know we have to send replacements via choppers to Captain Breeding. At around 7 am, a couple of choppers arrive at 558 to pick up the replacements. One of the people already aboard one of the choppers is David Duncan, a civilian combat photographer, who is the only journalist to ever visit our forward positions at Khe Sanh. His photographs became famous. Just as the last replacements board, Father Brett runs up to a chopper and tells the pilot he will be accompanying the replacements. He never bothers to ask permission or seek approval; he just feels he is needed on Hill 861A after their ordeal.
When he arrives on the hill, Captain Breeding spots him and blurts out, “Who’s that SOB walking around without his weapon?” When told it was the 2/26 Chaplain, he adds, “That’s great, I don’t need to babysit any more people on this hill.” That doesn’t faze Father Bob; he just continues to talk to as many men as possible. The men are deeply impressed and appreciative of his commitment and presence.
He spots the Marine positions on Hill 861, K Co 3/26, and tells one of the senior NCOs that he wants to visit those men, too! He is told that it is impossible, as there is a minefield between the two positions, 300 yards apart. The good padre is very serious and insists, so they walk over to Hill 861, trying to avoid the mines. After a brief visit, he returns to 861A and then back to 558 by midday. I would not have let him go if he had bothered to tell me of his intentions. In his mind, his desire to be of service and to administer to those men superseded any need to seek permission. Who can argue?
The Chaplain would often say Mass 10 times a day. He seemed to be utterly tireless as well as utterly fearless.
On February 22, 1968, Father Brett and Corporal Chin were at Khe Sahn. Colonel Kurth tells us what happened:
The next day, a chopper arrives at the combat base runway to pick up Father Brett, his enlisted assistant, Corporal Alexander Chin, and a few other individuals. As they approach the chopper, the NVA begins shelling the base with 122mm rockets. Father Brett tells another Marine to take his place aboard the aircraft, and he and Chin run back to a trench alongside the airfield. The helicopter takes off and heads for our position. The shelling continues, and one rocket round finds the trench immediately killing several Marines. Among the dead are Father Brett and Corporal Chin. The Corporal, an African/Chinese-American, already possesses two Purple Hearts for wounds previously sustained. He also had been one of my S-3 jeep drivers during our operations in the Hue/Phu Bai TAOR.
I cannot express adequately my shock and regret when I received the message informing me that Father Brett and Corporal Chin had been killed in the rocket attack, just moments ago. At this point, I’m not sure about your total reaction, but let me assure you that it immediately changes my attitude and belief in divine intervention and/or involvement. How can a merciful God allow this kind of tragedy to a man of the cloth, a good man, a dedicated minister to his people? How could you deal with such an obvious inconsistency? It took me a while following this event to return to a religious posture, and I still can’t purge it from my mind. I also deal with the guilt that if I had allowed him to go the day of his first request or not at all, he would not have been at that locale on the first day he was killed. The total shock extends to every Marine who knew him.
Man’s nature is to search for reason, yet he is incapable of answering the big questions and must rely on fate, not understanding. When we become too self-important and think we should know all the answers, all we need to do is sit in the field and gaze at the multitude of stars and planets in the night sky in just this galaxy alone. We then realize how small we are in the grand scheme. Without faith, we become even more insignificant.
Shortly after this tragic loss, I prepared an award recommendation for the Legion of Merit. Lieutenant Colonel Heath signs the recommendation, and it is forwarded to the 3rd Mar Div and approved. Father Brett is posthumously awarded that medal. Small compensation, but extremely well deserved. If anyone deserves burial at Arlington Cemetery, it is Father Brett.
Father Brett was buried at Arlington eventually, his body being re-interred there in 1998. In a moving ceremony in 1999, Corporal Chin’s body was moved from a family plot to lie next to Father Brett’s in Arlington.
Father Brett received many honors after his death, including the naming of a building for him at the Navy Chaplain school, but I am sure the honor that he held most dear is that the Marines he served at Khe Sanh built a chapel in his honor at Khe Sanh following his death.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer on February 27, 1968
A Catholic chaplain from Collingdale (PA) who said he wanted to be where “the men need me most” has been killed in action at the Marine Corps base at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. Navy Lt. Robert R. Brett, of 1001 Bartram Avenue, died Thursday of multiple mortar wounds. He was attached to the 3rd Marine Division. “He was neither a dove nor a hawk,” said a member of Lt. Brett’s family. “But he wanted to be where the men needed him most.” The 32-year-old priest requested overseas active duty.
Posted by Michael Robert Patterson on May 27, 1999
IN HONORED REMEMBRANCE
The last time anyone saw the chaplain and his aide alive was on an airstrip in Khe Sanh. As they came under attack from the North Vietnamese army, they waved off a helicopter set to take them away and prepared instead to do their jobs. For three long months during the Vietnam War, Chaplain Robert Brett, 33, and Private First Class Alexander Chin, a 23-year-old Marine, had forged a close partnership, scrambling through neck-high elephant grass and foxholes, dodging bullets and mortar shells as they ministered to frightened Marines. This time, the lightning-fast rocket attack on the landing strip took their lives. And their story might have ended on that February day in 1968, in the hilltop trench where their mangled bodies were pulled from the shrapnel and debris and shipped home. But yesterday, they were reunited in Arlington National Cemetery, buried side by side under a bright sky on Chaplain’s Hill. At the behest of Brett’s family and with the permission of Chin’s relatives, Chin’s body was removed from his family plot in the town of Princess Anne on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and reinterred next to the man he vowed to serve.
About 60 relatives, fellow Vietnam veterans, and military officials gathered for the ceremony. Navy Rear Admiral Barry C. Black, deputy chief of chaplains, told Chin’s family and friends that their Marine was a “spiritual hero.” Chin, family members say, was deeply religious and, after several months of combat, told his commanders in Vietnam that he could no longer kill the enemy. Instead of a court-martial, relatives said, Chin was given a job protecting and assisting Brett. “He said, ‘I won’t take a life, but I’ll put my life on the line for another.'” Black said, as six Marines held a flag above Chin’s coffin. “Alexander laid down his life. It was love’s crowning act.”
Family members embraced and sobbed openly as Marines fired a salute in Chin’s honor. “It’s devastating,” said Levi Chin, 52, his younger brother. “It’s like reliving his first funeral all over again. But it’s an honor that he’s here.”
Alexander Chin was in college, studying art, when he was drafted. Not long after he arrived in Vietnam, he and Brett became a fixture in the trenches, administering first aid, comforting Marines on the line, and doing on-the-spot baptisms. “They were always on the battlefield giving last rites and dragging the wounded to safer positions,” said Larry Ballard, who served with the men in the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh. “They were heroes. They placed themselves in mortal danger. Both of them.”
Jim Leslie, 58, a former Marine captain who served with Brett and Chin, attended yesterday’s ceremony and remembered Brett for his courage and compassion. “Chaplain Brett was always there, no matter if there was shooting or not,” Leslie said. The experience, he said, changed his life. “Some people call it foxhole religion, but for many of us, it continued forever. Brett was a brave one. No doubt.”
Brett volunteered to go to Vietnam because “he wanted to help people in dire situations,” said his brother, the Rev. Frank Brett of Norris, Tennessee, who also served as a chaplain in Vietnam. “My brother went places no one thought a chaplain would go. Most people would say, ‘What are you doing in this Khe Sanh mess?”
Robert Brett had been in Vietnam for six months when he and Chin were killed. Marines who witnessed the attack said the two were about to board a helicopter when they came under assault. Brett, they said, told the chopper to take off without them, allowing another man to go instead.
Several Marines were killed in the attack. At the time, family members said, Chin had already received three Purple Hearts and was scheduled to return home. He was engaged to be married.
“We had a banner stretched outside the door that said, ‘Welcome Home, Alex,’ ” recalled one of Chin’s sisters, Lottie Chin Benyard. “We had saved all his presents from Christmas, and we were going to celebrate all over again. Then we got the knock at the door telling us he’d been killed.”
Benyard said her family first learned of Chin’s heroism when she was contacted earlier this year by Ballard and later by Brett’s nephew, Edward Rouse. Three decades ago, Brett had been buried at his mother’s request in the cemetery of the Penndel, Pennsylvania, seminary where he received his religious training. His mother died in 1980, and last fall, Rouse and his family fulfilled their longtime wish to have Brett’s body moved to Arlington National Cemetery.
They felt strongly that Chin should be there, too. So Rouse hired a private detective, who tracked down Chin’s relatives in the Baltimore area. Chin “knew his duty was to protect the chaplain, and in honor of that commitment, I felt it was my duty to bring him to Arlington for honors and recognition,” Rouse said. “A lot of lies have come out about Vietnam veterans.
“This is a story of honor and sacrifice. It would have been very easy for them, in the face of all that evil, to give up their belief in God and their dedication to duty in the face of stress. But neither of them did. I’m proud of both of them.”
On The Lower Bucks County Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 700 Veterans Highway, Levittown, Pennsylvania
On the ‘wall’ of the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 108 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Panel 3.
Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, One Memorial Drive, Arlington, Virginia; Section 2, Grave E-88-RH; photo from ancexplorer.army.mil. PFC Chin is buried in Section 2, Grave E-89-LH.
Photos from FindAGrave.com. Left from contributor Cindy, and right from contributor David McInturff.
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