Medal of Honor Awarded to Korean War Chaplain

Supporters of the Rev. Emil Kapaun, an Army chaplain who died a prisoner in the Korean War, are still working to have him declared a Catholic saint for his lifesaving ministrations to them. But for now, they have the satisfaction of seeing him posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor at the White House.

In an East Room ceremony on Thursday, Pres. Obama presented the blue sash and five-pointed star to an emotional Ray Kapaun, a nephew. At 56, the nephew has been alive for less time than his uncle’s comrades have labored to get recognition for their chaplain, who died nearly 62 years ago, at the age of 35, in a prisoner-of-war camp. 

“This is an amazing story,” Mr. Obama said. “Father Kapaun has been called a shepherd in combat boots. His fellow soldiers who felt his grace and his mercy called him a saint, a blessing from God. Today, we bestow another title on him — recipient of our nation’s highest military decoration.” 

He added, “I know one of Father Kapaun’s comrades spoke for a lot of folks here when he said, ‘It’s about time.’ ” 


Father Kapaun was honored for his heroism during combat at Unsan, in November 1950 when his unit — the Third Battalion, Eighth Cavalry Regiment, First Cavalry Division — was attacked by Chinese Communist forces, according to the citation read aloud as Mr. Obama and Mr. Kapaun stood at attention. 

The chaplain “calmly walked through withering enemy fire” and hand-to-hand combat to provide medical aid, comforting words or the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church to the wounded, the citation said. When he saw a Chinese soldier about to execute a wounded comrade, Sgt. First Class Herbert A. Miller, he rushed to push the gun away. Mr. Miller, now 86, was at the White House for the ceremony with other veterans, former prisoners of war and members of the Kapaun family.

"This is the valor we honor today," Mr. Obama said. "An American soldier who didn't fire a gun, but who wielded the mightiest weapon of all , a love for his brothers so pure that he was willing to die so that they might live."

At such ceremonies, the president, who wrote a best-selling memoir, seems to relish the narrative of a compelling tale. For this one, he went beyond the citation, saying “the incredible story of Father Kapaun does not end there.” 

Since the priest was from a small town near Wichita, Kan., like Mr. Obama’s grandparents who helped raise him, “I have a sense of the man he was,” Mr. Obama said. He told of how Father Kapaun carried Mr. Miller and helped soldiers who faltered on a forced march to a prisoner-of-war camp, where the Chinese sent them after the attack. Through the winter, as the American prisoners froze to death, he offered his clothes, sneaked out to bring back grain and cleaned the soldiers’ wounds. 

Guards tortured him for his shows of faith, but on Easter, Father Kapaun offered Mass in church ruins at the camp as guards looked on. 

One of the veterans told him, the president said, that the chaplain “kept a lot of us alive.” 

The priest had a blood clot, dysentery and then pneumonia, and in May 1951, guards sent him into isolation, without food or water, to die. As Mr. Obama recounted, based on testimony from Father Kapaun’s comrades, the priest looked at the guards and said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

His remains were never recovered. At war’s end, the surviving P.O.W.’s walked out of the camp with a four-foot wooden crucifix they had made in his honor.
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(This article is taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/us/politics/father-emil-j-kapaun-awarded-medal-of-honor.html?_r=0