John Caruso joined the Marines after his brother Mathew was killed during the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir. He was still in the Marines five years later when he was called into the office of the chaplain whose life his brother saved. Mathew’s remains, which had been buried in a mass grave in North Korea, had been repatriated and Father Griffin had arranged for John to accompany his brother’s body from San Francisco to Hartford, Connecticut, three days by train, for burial. When people on the train asked John why he was wearing a black armband on his Class A uniform, he said he was a burial escort for a fallen Marine. And then a woman asked if he knew the Marine. For decades, it was John’s hope to one day write a book about his brother.
Oral historian Aaron Elson had heard the story of Mathew’s heroism from retired chaplain Connell Maguire, who heard the story in chaplain school in a class taught by a colleague of Father Griffin. Elson and John Caruso met once a week at a Dunkin Donuts in Simsbury, Connecticut for two years to talk about the project. The result is “Semper Fi, Padre.”
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