Jerome R. Daly was the most decorated helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. After retiring from the Army in 1982, he became a Catholic priest.

Vietnam was a war in which combat helicopters played a pre-eminent role. According to a 2018 report by Gary Roush of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, over 40,000 helicopter pilots flew about 12,000 helicopters. “Army HU-1’s totaled 10,693,902 flight hours…It is my opinion that the Huey, including the Huey Cobra (AH-1G) which [alone] had 1,166,344 flight hours in Vietnam, [had] more combat flight time than any other aircraft in the history of warfare.” 2,165 pilots were killed in action, and 2,712 non-pilot crew members were killed in action (source here). Daly himself flew 2,000 hours in three tours. He earned 80 [this is not a typo] citations for bravery, including the Silver Star, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Bronze Stars for valor, two Purple Hearts, an Army Commendation Medal, and most notably a Distinguished Service Cross.

Daly earned the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions serving with the 121st Assault Helicopter Company, 13th Combat Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Brigade on March 26, Easter Sunday, 1967. The citation was for “exceptionally valorous actions” as commander in

the rescue of three downed helicopter crews that were threatened by two Viet Cong battalions near Vinh Long. Three helicopters had been shot down in the contested landing zone and all rescue attempts had been thwarted by intense enemy fire from fortified emplacements in a treeline 100 meters from the aircraft. Although it was imperative to rescue the men before nightfall, ground armor reinforcing units were unable to reach the besieged men in time. It was decided that Warrant Officer Daly’s aircraft would place a smoke screen between the insurgents and the rescue aircraft. Although he knew that he would be required to fly less than 100 meters from a treeline which contained incredible Viet Cong firepower, he readily gave his consent to the plan. With the pickup aircraft right behind him, Warrant Officer Daly descended, flew in front of Viet Cong automatic weapons and concealed the rescue operation with thick smoke. Although the pickup operations were expected to last a very short time, the downed men were spread throughout the landing area and more evacuation aircraft were needed. Unhesitatingly, Warrant Officer Daly circled and once again placed a smoke screen while passing through the hail of enemy fire. By the time all of the men had been recovered from the field, he had placed himself before the enemy weapons twelve times. Although he and his crew escaped unscathed, his aircraft was so damaged that it was judged beyond repair…

The DSC was awarded by General Harold K. Johnson, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, on behalf of the President, at Soc Trang Airfield, August 4, 1967. There is a videoclip of excellent quality of it here.

Forty years later, in 2007, there was a reunion. Daly was reached by phone. He said, among other things, that there were 50 bullet holes in his aircraft, not the legendary 130 (James R. Chiles, “Easter Sunday at Vinh Long,” Smithsonian Magazine, Dec. 2018, link here). Ask yourself, though: Do you pass close to heavy enemy fire 12 times and take only four bullets per pass? And just 50 bullets rendered the aircraft beyond repair?

After Vietnam, his service included commanding the 4^th Battalion, 1^st Aviation Brigade. Having served as a private and in various other ranks, he retired in 1982 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The following year, 1983, Daly was inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame, Fort Worth (see here). That biography states he

was a proven expert in aviation operations, maintenance, and the development of innovative tactics and doctrine and proven hardware systems.

In 1966 at the US Army Aviation Center he was the leading instructor of helicopter gunnery and an expert with M-3 and M-5 weapons systems. There he was not only noted for his fine skills but also for his efforts in modernizing and improving aerial gunnery training.

Daly (July 21, 1931-Jan. 14, 2023) had been born in Oakland and grew up in Philadelphia as the middle child of three boys (the brothers predeceased him). He graduated from Lower Merion Senior High School (now Lower Merion High School), Ardmore, Pennsylvania, in 1950. The biographies uniformly state that he enlisted in the Army in 1949. After high school graduation, he majored in political science and graduated in a class of 188 men from St. Joseph’s College (now University) in Philadelphia in 1954. After graduation he worked as a volunteer firefighter, as a test pilot at Bell Helicopter, and in insurance. Then he re-enlisted in the Army in 1958, age 27.

His story contains an unexplained anomaly. He enlisted in the Army in 1949 but, according to high school records, he attended high school in the years leading to his graduation in 1950. Then he graduated four years later from college in 1954. It would not appear there was any time to be active in the Army prior to 1954, except that it might explain why Daly is not listed as having participated in any extracurricular activities during college.

After Daly’s death, a group of cloistered nuns, the Poor Clares of Alexandria, Virginia, contacted Monsignor John C. Cregan who would be giving the sermon at Father Daly’s funeral Mass. Msgr. Cregan was himself a military veteran and had been a close friend of Fr. Daly’s since their seminary days but had never heard the story the Poor Clares told him. During the first year after Daly’s ordination, he celebrated Mass for the Poor Clares at their monastery. December 12, 1987, was the annual feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He told them that after he retired from the military, he went with a group on a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited in 2009 and infamously asked who painted the image of the lady on the tilma, or cloak, of Juan Diego.) He went for a stroll outside his hotel in the evening and was abducted by three men at gunpoint. They beat him on his head and knees. Reaching a deserted area, they stopped the car. As they yanked him from the car, he prayed out loud over and over, “Our Lady of Guadalupe, protect me!” The men reacted by returning his wallet intact, telling him he was crazy and driving off, leaving him stranded. The next day, Daly was at the basilica giving thanks for his safety and he heard the same words spoken by Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego in 1531, “Where are you going?” In response, he thought of becoming a monk.

When he was on retreat at Madonna House, Combermere, Ontario, he told the foundress, Catherine Doherty (1896-1985), author of the spiritual classic Poustinia and whose life is being investigated for canonization, of his interest in becoming a monk. She replied that he had led soldiers for decades and he would have much to offer the Church in active ministry, not baking bread.

At age 51, he entered Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He was ordained a priest for the Catholic Diocese of Arlington in 1987. He served as parochial vicar of St. Ambrose Church in Annandale, 1987-91, and St. Leo the Great in Fairfax, 1991-94, and as pastor of St. John the Beloved, 1994-2000, in McLean, and St. Michael, Annandale, until his retirement in 2004.

Here I share three memories of Father Daly when he was pastor of my parish, St. John the Beloved:

· When we asked him to join the Knights of Columbus and serve as chaplain to the new council at the parish, he declined by saying he belonged to the Army and to the priesthood, and that was enough organizations for him!

· He would routinely vacation in Ireland and, without fail, would include an Irish comical story in every Sunday sermon. He never made any attempt to connect the story to the sermon. He included the story just to keep everyone alert.

· In his funeral sermon, Msgr. Cregan recalled that Father Daly’s life as a priest was well-ordered. Perhaps one example is the “midnight” Mass he celebrated on New Year’s Eve 1999. Father Daly decided to celebrate a Mass starting not at midnight to mark the new year but at 11:30 p.m. It was thought by some that, when computer calendars struck January 1, 2000 (the dreaded “Y2K” event), the computers world-wide would crash and civilization would change drastically and for the worse. Shortly before midnight, he consecrated the Host. Then, according to the Catholic rite, he raised (or “elevated”) it above his head. As he did so, the timing was perfect, the church bells struck midnight. If the world was going to change at midnight, his parishioners would be adoring the Lord Jesus in the Host.

Father Daly had bought property in Ireland intending to retire there, but when he retired from active ministry he sold it and continued his ministry for nearly 20 more years to the people of St. Raymond of Peñafort, Springfield, Virginia, and his neighbors in the Fairfax Army Retirement Community in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Because of the long delay expected in having his remains interred at Arlington National Cemetery, he chose to have them interred in a section for priests at Fairfax Memorial Park, Fairfax, Virginia.

Nearly five years before his death, Daly gave the invocation at the dedication of the Vietnam Helicopter and Crewmember Monument located in Section 35 of Arlington National Cemetery, near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (on April 18, 2018). The two-minute video of it is here.

May he rest in peace.