Those We Lost
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On June 28, police discovered Joseph Dwyer alone in his apartment, surrounded by pill bottles and aerosol cans. He was already dying.
Close Army friends expressed frustration with the military for allowing Dwyer to slip through the cracks of programs designed to help veterans in emotional recovery post-deployment. Dwyer had recently begun peer counseling with a fellow Iraq veteran who could relate to Dwyer's fear and trauma, the only treatment that seemed to help, but he was already too far gone. Dwyer was included in Irish America's Top 100 Irish Americans of the Year list in 2004 for his contributions to public service.
David Herbert Greene died July 9 of pneumonia at the age of 94 in Boynton Beach, Florida. A professor at New York University for almost forty years, Greene was a well-recognized scholar of Irish literature credited by some with pioneering the field in American education.
Born in Boston in 1913, Greene earned three degrees from Harvard's literature department over four short years between 1936 and 1939. After accomplishing his Ph.D. there, he served as a Navy intelligence officer in Britain during World War II, then was hired as an English professor at NYU. Officially retiring in 1979, Greene went on to work as an emeritus professor there for six more years.
Greene made a name for himself through several books including J.M. Synge: 1871-1909, an authorized biography written with Edward M. Stephens. He also worked on television and edited An Anthology of Irish Literature. Three years ago Greene donated to NYU decades of correspondence with Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, the result of a friendship begun when Greene was a Harvard student in the 1930s.
David Greene is survived by his wife, formerly Catherine Healy, to whom he had been married for sixty-nine years, a son, three daughters, four grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
Red Foley, a scorer in major league baseball for nearly four decades, died July 7 at age 79 in Flushing, Queens. He scored games from 1966 to 2002, and worked in ten World Series between 1981 and 2001, a record number. Foley also wrote sports stories for The Daily News for 34 years, until 1981, and a question-and-answer column in the New York Post after that. An officer of the Baseball Writers' Association of America for years, he served as chairman of the New York chapter in 1969-7. Foley's death was made known to the public by the family lawyer, Kevin Brosnahan.
