Chaplain Fr, Joseph Tran
marks 30 years as priest
BEALE AFB, Yuba County (4/27/03) -- St. Mary's Catholic Community prayed for "people in service in Iraq" Sunday as they marked Father Joseph Huan Tran's 30th year as a priest and 15th as a chaplain.
In vestments of Easter white, Bishop Richard Garcia led the celebration of the Mercy Sunday Mass, with retired chaplain Franciscan Father James Rockenstein and Father Tran assisting.
It was coincidentally Bishop Garcia's 30th year in the priesthood. Add to that the 46 years under Father Rockenstein cincture and there were 106 years in the priesthood gathered at the altar.
Father Tran was born in North Vietnam in 1954 and fled South Vietnam in 1975 two years after the communist takeover.
The tale of the young priest's perilous escape to freedom across the treacherous and storm-racked South China Sea in a small, over-crowded boat challenges the imagination.
"No compass, no map, no direction. We zig-zagged over ocean from place to place. We prayed and prayed," Father Tran recalled.
"Think of it! Twenty-one days with pirates on the water!" an incredulous Air Force Lt. Col. David McCray said after the service Sunday at Beale's Foothill Chapel.
But grace was with the young Father Tran. U.S. Navy rescuers rescued him and his parched and starving shipmates from Subic Bay, the Philippines.
Father Tran spent many months in refugee camp limbo on Guam before being offered sponsorship by Bishop Walter Sullivan of the Richmond, Va. Diocese.
Graduated from Saigon's St. Joseph University and ordained in 1973, Father Tran was appointed America's first Vietnamese pastor.
It took two years of patient lobbying for Father Tran to convince Bishop Sullivan to release him to serve as an Air Force chaplain.
"I kept telling him, I wanted to travel, to see more of this great country, learn more of its culture and language, mingle with more of its people," Father Tran said.
He saw in service as a chaplain as a way to show his gratitude to Americans men and woman in the military for sacrifices in Vietnam.
"We were a small country. They came to help. We fought side by side," Father Tran said.
Since he was commissioned as a chaplain in the Air Force in 1987 -- his current rank is captain -- Father Tran has seen any postings: Lackland AFB, Texas; Maxwell AFB, Ala.; Howard AFB, Panama; Ramstein AFB, Germany; Sheppard AFB, Texas; Yokota AFB, Japan; and many temporary duty stations including Saudia Arabia.
It was a TDY assignment from Yokota just after the first Gulf war that closed one circle of his life. Fate and its ironies put him back on Guam, this time to serve a new generation of war refugees, this time Kurds escaping from Northern Iraq.
"I had been a refugee. They were refugees. They loved me so much, because they knew I understood their situation," said father Tran, a chirpy man possessed of a quick smile and a doggedly sunny disposition.
International, national and regional political and religious leaders have raised doubts and ethical questions about Gulf War Two, but not so as you would notice it among St. Mary's congregation, according to Father Tran.
The soldier's job remains the same. Families still pray for the safety of loved ones in the same timeless way. Comity between chaplains serving the various faiths observed by Beale's 5,000 population continues unabated, Father Tran noted.
"There are Muslims at Beale, you know. We try to reach out. We want to embrace them, too," Father Tran said.
Father Rockenstein -- who retired after 23 years as a chaplain and remains close to Beale with a home in Wheatland -- echoed Father Tran's take on the solidarity of mission expressed by the laity of St. Mary's.
"I've never once heard a single person express any doubts about it," Father Rockenstein said.
Father Tran will be reassigned again in June. His goal is to serve another five years or so as a chaplain and them perhaps retire to be a chaplain at a Veterans Administration hospital somewhere.
"Looking back, I think my life from Vietnam to here is like a miracle. I would like to continue to serve the military in any way I can in thanks," Father Tran said.
But here is another long-range dream of floating around in his active mind. In the hope of returning service for service -- a kind of personal moral equation of quid pro quo -- Father Tran would like someday, should circumstances ever permit, to return to Vietnam and his old seminary.
"If Vietnam is ever free, if no communists are there, I would like to go serve somehow in education, give back something to the seminary where I studied," Father Tran said.
marks 30 years as priest
BEALE AFB, Yuba County (4/27/03) -- St. Mary's Catholic Community prayed for "people in service in Iraq" Sunday as they marked Father Joseph Huan Tran's 30th year as a priest and 15th as a chaplain.
In vestments of Easter white, Bishop Richard Garcia led the celebration of the Mercy Sunday Mass, with retired chaplain Franciscan Father James Rockenstein and Father Tran assisting.
It was coincidentally Bishop Garcia's 30th year in the priesthood. Add to that the 46 years under Father Rockenstein cincture and there were 106 years in the priesthood gathered at the altar.
Father Tran was born in North Vietnam in 1954 and fled South Vietnam in 1975 two years after the communist takeover.
The tale of the young priest's perilous escape to freedom across the treacherous and storm-racked South China Sea in a small, over-crowded boat challenges the imagination.
"No compass, no map, no direction. We zig-zagged over ocean from place to place. We prayed and prayed," Father Tran recalled.
"Think of it! Twenty-one days with pirates on the water!" an incredulous Air Force Lt. Col. David McCray said after the service Sunday at Beale's Foothill Chapel.
But grace was with the young Father Tran. U.S. Navy rescuers rescued him and his parched and starving shipmates from Subic Bay, the Philippines.
Father Tran spent many months in refugee camp limbo on Guam before being offered sponsorship by Bishop Walter Sullivan of the Richmond, Va. Diocese.
Graduated from Saigon's St. Joseph University and ordained in 1973, Father Tran was appointed America's first Vietnamese pastor.
It took two years of patient lobbying for Father Tran to convince Bishop Sullivan to release him to serve as an Air Force chaplain.
"I kept telling him, I wanted to travel, to see more of this great country, learn more of its culture and language, mingle with more of its people," Father Tran said.
He saw in service as a chaplain as a way to show his gratitude to Americans men and woman in the military for sacrifices in Vietnam.
"We were a small country. They came to help. We fought side by side," Father Tran said.
Since he was commissioned as a chaplain in the Air Force in 1987 -- his current rank is captain -- Father Tran has seen any postings: Lackland AFB, Texas; Maxwell AFB, Ala.; Howard AFB, Panama; Ramstein AFB, Germany; Sheppard AFB, Texas; Yokota AFB, Japan; and many temporary duty stations including Saudia Arabia.
It was a TDY assignment from Yokota just after the first Gulf war that closed one circle of his life. Fate and its ironies put him back on Guam, this time to serve a new generation of war refugees, this time Kurds escaping from Northern Iraq.
"I had been a refugee. They were refugees. They loved me so much, because they knew I understood their situation," said father Tran, a chirpy man possessed of a quick smile and a doggedly sunny disposition.
International, national and regional political and religious leaders have raised doubts and ethical questions about Gulf War Two, but not so as you would notice it among St. Mary's congregation, according to Father Tran.
The soldier's job remains the same. Families still pray for the safety of loved ones in the same timeless way. Comity between chaplains serving the various faiths observed by Beale's 5,000 population continues unabated, Father Tran noted.
"There are Muslims at Beale, you know. We try to reach out. We want to embrace them, too," Father Tran said.
Father Rockenstein -- who retired after 23 years as a chaplain and remains close to Beale with a home in Wheatland -- echoed Father Tran's take on the solidarity of mission expressed by the laity of St. Mary's.
"I've never once heard a single person express any doubts about it," Father Rockenstein said.
Father Tran will be reassigned again in June. His goal is to serve another five years or so as a chaplain and them perhaps retire to be a chaplain at a Veterans Administration hospital somewhere.
"Looking back, I think my life from Vietnam to here is like a miracle. I would like to continue to serve the military in any way I can in thanks," Father Tran said.
But here is another long-range dream of floating around in his active mind. In the hope of returning service for service -- a kind of personal moral equation of quid pro quo -- Father Tran would like someday, should circumstances ever permit, to return to Vietnam and his old seminary.
"If Vietnam is ever free, if no communists are there, I would like to go serve somehow in education, give back something to the seminary where I studied," Father Tran said.
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