In 2014, while stationed at Saint Bridget University Parish in Glassboro, I had come to know about Navy Chaplain Robert R. Brett who was killed in Khe Sanh, Vietnam, during the height of the Tet offensive in 1968.
At the time, a parishioner and I were changing the linings of the collection baskets when, behold, underneath one of the linings, was a yellowed, torn obituary, hidden for almost 50 years: “Navy Chaplain Killed in Vietnam: Collingdale Priest Was Saying Mass.”
In addition to an obituary about a priest-chaplain killed in action, what struck me most was the town “Collingdale.” Collingdale, a borough on the outskirts of Philadelphia in Delaware County, is the site of my home parish of Saint Joseph. It was where I was baptized and eventually ordained a priest.
Unfortunately, I had never heard of this local priest or of his Gold Star mother who lived across the street from the parish — that is, until 2014. Even though the article piqued my interest, I set it aside. Finally, almost under inspiration, I read the obituary again on Feb. 19, 2018, three days shy of Father Brett’s 50th death anniversary. I decided then to research Father Brett’s life. What unfolded was devotion and bravery, but also a story of a partnership forged in the heat of combat, united in death, and reunited after death.
Father Brett was the son of Margaret H. Brett of 1001 Bartram Ave., Collingdale, whose home, at the time of her son’s death, was directly across the street from Saint Joseph’s Parish grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes. Father Brett, however, grew up in the Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia and attended Saint Edmond and Saint Gabriel schools.
He became a priest in the Society of Mary (Marists) in February 1962 and, in June 1967, he entered the Navy Chaplain Corps. The obituary states that Father Brett “told his family he wanted to go to Vietnam to give spiritual guidance to the men.” A family member later recalled, in a 1987 newspaper article, that Father Brett “was neither a hawk or a dove, but he wanted to be where the men needed him most, so he requested combat duty in Viet Nam.”
Lieutenant Brett was assigned to the 26th Marine Regiment, 2nd Battalion, at Khe Sanh and was assisted by Private First Class Alexander Scheleph Chin.
Pfc. Chin, 23, of Baltimore, was a seasoned combat veteran with three Purple Hearts when assigned as chaplain assistant to Father Brett. Together for three months they had forged a close partnership as they served frightened, wounded and dying Marines in combat.
A May 27, 1999, article from the Washington Post states: “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.” Years later, Navy Rear Admiral Barry C. Black, deputy chief of chaplains, quoted Chin saying, “I won’t take a life, but I’ll put my life on the line for another.”
The last time anyone saw the chaplain and his aide alive was on an airstrip in Khe Sanh where a rocket attack took their lives. It was Feb. 22, 1968. The Washington Post wrote, “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.”
The mangled bodies of Brett and Chin were pulled from the shrapnel and shipped home for burial in Pennsylvania and in Maryland.
Father Brett was buried, at his mother’s request, in the cemetery of the Penndel, Pennsylvania, seminary where he received his religious training. PFC Chin was buried in his family plot in the town of Princess Anne on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Years later, at the request of family, Father Brett’s remains were reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1998. The family also felt strongly that Chin should be there, too. Eventually Father Brett’s nephew, Edward Rouse, had tracked down Chin’s relatives in the Baltimore area. At the behest of Brett’s family and with the permission of Chin’s relatives, the remains of Pfc. Chin were removed from his family plot and reinterred on Chaplains’ Hill on May 26,1999, next to the chaplain whom he served.
Larry Ballard, a former Marine who served in the 26th Marine Regiment at Khe Sanh, stated, “They were always on the battlefield giving last rites and dragging the wounded to safer positions. They were heroes. They placed themselves in mortal danger. Both of them.”
Father Matthew R. Weber is pastor of Holy Cross Parish, Bridgeton.
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