Born January 17, 1927 in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas Anthony Dooley was raised in a Catholic household and attended his parish grade school before coming to St. Louis U. High. However, while Dooley had an early life similar to many high school students today (including myself), his actions over the course of the second half of his life distinguish him even today as a model of faith for all.
Dooley first attended the University of Notre Dame, but struggled to keep his grades up and disagreed with the university’s strict policies. So, he transferred to Saint Louis University, graduated from medical school, and began a medical internship with the U.S. Navy, serving first on the U.S.S. Montague and later in the “Passage to Freedom” program.
The program, based in Haiphong, Vietnam, helped half a million North Vietnamese refugees flee to South Vietnam. Dooley served as a medical officer, and cured many refugees who had been maimed to the point of death because of their religious beliefs.
When asked what he got out of the humanitarian work, Dooley responded: “I get plenty. All of us have the same quiet, inner joy that you have when you see your patient’s eyes light up just a little bit because of you. But take that patient and put him in a hospital, in a high mountain valley, half a world away, where without you he has black magic or sorcery: you heal him and the glow inside of you is a wonderful thing.”
A gifted writer, Dooley kept a journal about his experiences in Vietnam. His passionate and eloquent descriptions were distributed by Navy commanders to boost morale and, after Dooley gained a sizable readership in the home country, were compiled in his anti-communist best-seller Deliver Us from Evil.
Dooley became a national hero after releasing the book. However, he encountered a major challenge while touring for his book. Amid accusations of dishonesty, he was accused of homosexual activity and discharged from the Navy in 1956.
Dooley could have easily stopped helping strangers halfway across the globe and settled down in his home country. He however, had other ideas: “I am not going to quit, I will continue to guide and lead… until my back, my blood, and my bones collapse,” Dooley said.
Dooley chose to return to Southeast Asia. He worked on sponsorship from the International Rescue Committee to establish 17 medical clinics in 14 countries and co-founded the Medical International Cooperation Organization (MEDICO), which among other things recruited American doctors and other medical personnel to help out in Laos, where, said Dooley in a letter to his mother Agnes, “Most ha(d) never seen a white man, none ha(d) ever seen a doctor.”
During this time Dooley sometimes returned to the United States, where he often appeared on radio and television shows to spread his cause. Unfortunately, Dooley’s last trip to America was not such a one: he contracted malignant melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, and was sent to New York for treatment. Dooley died on January 18, 1961, one day after his thirty-fourth birthday.
Dooley has been honored by several institutions with multiple awards. He has been honored with a statue at Notre Dame nearby the Grotto. At the base of the statue is his letter to President Theodore Hesbrough in which Dooley states: “How do people endure anything on Earth if they cannot have God?”
This quote gives us a glimpse into the mind of a saint. In his life Dooley proved himself to be a man of intense convictions by persevering through the hard times in his life – his academic struggles, the horrors of witnessing the persecuted refugees, the humiliation of being discharged from Navy – in order to serve others. And the reason he was able to persevere was his faith.
