America's North Shore Journal

CaringBridge.org

Chap­lain (Major) Henry T. Vakoc, Retired, a Roman Catholic Priest, was sta­tioned in Iraq when he was wounded Sat­ur­day, May 29, the 12^th anniver­sary of his ordi­na­tion. He was return­ing from pre­sid­ing at a Mass for the sol­diers when his humvee was struck by an IED (impro­vised explo­sive device). Father Tim was trans­ported through Ger­many to Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter in Wash­ing­ton, DC on 2 June. He has sus­tained a severe brain injury. On Wednes­day, July 14 Fr. Tim received a Pur­ple Heart.

The night Fr. Tim arrived at Wal­ter Reed Army Med­ical Cen­ter in early June 2004, the Most Rev­erend Edwin F. O'Brien, Arch­bishop of the Arch­dio­cese for the Mil­i­tary Ser­vices, was there to meet him. Arch­bishop O'Brien told Fr. Tim, "You are still a priest. This bed is now your altar and this is where you are now called to serve as a priest."

Father Tim is now being seen by Phys­i­cal, Occu­pa­tional and Speech Ther­a­pists. Tim con­tin­ues to be sta­ble. His med­ical team has seen some improve­ment in con­sis­tency in his responses and he is track­ing objects bet­ter. He is in a month-long test to see if improve­ments can be made. His progress will be reviewed every two weeks. He tires after about ten min­utes. Please pray for Tim to con­tinue to show con­sis­tency in his responses, to find a reli­able means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, to have an increase in phys­i­cal endurance, main­tain sta­ble blood pres­sure when he is on the tilt table, and bal­ance in his GI track.

A den­tist recently vis­ited Fr. Tim. His teeth look pretty good. Noth­ing more needs to be done now. The den­tist, with the assis­tance of a tongue depres­sor, was able to get into Tim's mouth with­out hav­ing to sedate him. This is good news as it indi­cates he get­ting bet­ter at get­ting his mouth open.

You can mail cards, let­ters, and other words of encour­age­ment to Fr. Tim at this address:

Chap­lain (Major) Henry T. Vakoc, Retired
Min­nesota Vet­er­ans Med­ical Cen­ter
One Vet­er­ans Drive
Min­neapo­lis, Min­nesota 55417

Addi­tional infor­ma­tion about Father Vakoc:

• Chap­lain Vakoc, War Hero
  

  Dur­ing a pre­vi­ous deploy­ment in Bosnia , Father Tim had this to say about risk, explain­ing to his sis­ter what he was up to and why: "The safest place for me to be is in the cen­ter of God's will, and if that is in the line of fire, that is where I will be."

  Men like Father Tim Vakoc are most cer­tainly not the oxy­morons paci­fists imag­ine them to be. Nei­ther are they the on-site moral the­olo­gians some intel­lec­tu­als think they ought to be — every senior officer's per­sonal just-war con­sul­tant, so to speak. These men are pas­tors. Their work hon­ors the priest­hood. We should honor them for it.

• PRIEST HEROES
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