Campus Life
The following newspaper article on Tom
Dooley appreard in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on April 4,
1993. The author is John DeGregorio, a Washington, D.C., attorney.
Tom Dooley was a Notre Dame graduate and pre-med student.
As a young Navy doctor, Dooley tended to thousands of North Vietnamese
fleeing for the south, treating them for smallpox, leprosy, malaria and
malnutrition. He resolved that no Vietnamese would leave the Navy camps
until screened for tropical diseases. He offered surgery to those who
needed it.
He convinced American pharmaceutical companies to donate antibiotics, and
even got Pan Am to give 10,000 bars of soap. He had his staff study
tropical diseases because America "never knew where it had to fight
next." Although he was supposed to run only one clinic,
he established a network that treated hundreds daily. In nine months,
he supervised the treatment of 610,000 people.
Dooley's work left him revered for a decade by the South Vietnamese,
whose government awarded Dooley the highest honor it could bestow
on a foreigner. The Navy awarded him the Legion of Merit, and Congress
honored Dooley, who died in 1961 at 34, with a posthumous medal for his
"gallant and unselfish public service." He made Gallup's list
of the 10 most admired men in America.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, "Few, if any, men have equalled
(Dooley's) exhibition of courage, self-sacrifice, faith in his God
and his readiness to serve his fellow man."
Dr. Tom Dooley's Letter to Father Hesburgh
Hong Kong, December 2, 1960
Dear Father Hesburgh:
They've got me down. Flat on the back . . . with plaster, sand bags and
hot water bottles. It took the last three instruments to do it
however. I've contrived a way of pumping the bed up a bit so that, with a
long reach, I can get to my typewriter . . . my mind . . . my brain . . .
my fingers.
Two things prompt this note to you, sir. The first is that whenever my
cancer acts up . . . and it is certainly "acting up" now, I turn
inward a bit. Less do I think of my hospitals around the world, or of 94
doctors, fund raising and the like. More do I think of one divine Doctor,
and my own personal fund of grace. Is it enough?
It has become pretty definite that the cancer has spread to the
lumbar vertebrae, accounting for all of the back problems over the last
two months. I have monstrous phantoms . . . as all men do. But I try to
exorcise them with all the fury of the middle ages. And inside and outside
the wind blows.
But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does
not matter. The winds within do not matter. Nothing human or earthly can
touch me. A wilder storm of peace gathers in my heart. What seems
unpossessable I can possess. What seems unfathomable, I fathom. What is
unutterable, I utter. Because I can pray. I can communicate. How do people
endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?
I realize the external symbols that surround one when he prays are not
important. The stark wooden cross on an altar of boxes in Haophong
with a tortured priest . . . the magnificence of the Sacred Heart Bernini
altar . . . they are essentially the same. Both are symbols. It is the
Something else there that counts.
But just now . . . and just so many times, how I long for the Grotto. Away
from the Grotto Dooley just prays. But at the Grotto,
especially now when there must be snow everywhere and the lake is ice
glass and that triangular fountain on the left is frozen solid and all the
priests are bundled in their too-large too-long old black coats and the
students wear snow boots . . . if I could go to the Grotto now then I
think I could sing inside. I could be full of faith and poetry and
loveliness and know more beauty, tenderness and compassion. This is soggy
sentimentalism I know. Cold prayers from a hospital bed are just as
pleasing to God as more youthful prayers from a Grotto on the lid of night.
But like telling a mother in labor, "It's okay, millions have endured
the labor pains and survived happy . . . you will too." It's
consoling . . . but doesn't lessen the pain. Accordingly, knowing prayers
from here are just as good as from the Grotto doesn't lessen my growing,
yearning passion to be there.
I don't mean to ramble. Yes, I do.
The second reason I write to you just now is that I have in front
of me Notre Dame Alumnus of September 1960. And herein is a story. This is
a Chinese hospital run by a Chinese division of the Sisters of Charity. (I
think) Though my doctors are British the hospital is as Chinese as Shark's
Fin Soup. Every orderly, corpsman, nurse and nun know of my work in Asia,
and each has taken it upon themselves to personally "give" to
the man they feel has given to their Asia. As a consequence I'm a bit
smothered in tender, loving care.
With a triumphant smile this morning one of the nuns brought me
some American magazines (which are limp with age and which I must hold
horizontal above my head to read . . . . .) An old National Geographic,
two older Times, and that unfortunate edition Life . . . and with these, a
copy of the Notre Dame Alumnus. How did it ever get here?
So Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame is twice on my mind . . . and always in my
heart. That Grotto is the rock to which my life is anchored.
Do the students ever appreciate what they have, while they have it? I know
I never did. Spent most of my time being angry at the clergy at school . .
. . . 10 P.M. bed check, absurd for a 19 year old veteran, etc., etc.,
etc.
Won't take any more of your time, did just want to communicate
for a moment, and again offer my thanks to my beloved Notre Dame. Though I
lack a certain bouancy in my bones just now, I lack none in my spirit. I
must return to the states very soon, and I hope to sneak into that Grotto...
. . . before the snow has melted.
My best wishes to the students, regards to the faculty, and
respects to you.
Very Sincerely,
Tom Dooley
(Tom Dooley died on January 18, 1961)
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