In a recent phone interview with Navy Chaplain Corps Public Affairs medically retired Cpl. Ray Harton described the impact of his three encounters with Father Capodanno in Vietnam while serving as a machine gunner with Mike Company, 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment. “The first thing I noticed was his eyes and the way he carried himself with this speech; it was soft..He looked like a Marine but didn’t talk like one. When his eyes came in contact with yours, you couldn’t help pay attention. He drew you to him.”
Harton is one of the last Marines known to have seen Capodanno before he was killed, Sept. 4, 1967.