Those We Lost

Michael Joseph Daly

Michael Joseph Daly, 83, died July 25 of pancreatic cancer in his home in Fairfield, Connecticut. A lieutenant and later a captain in the Army's Third Infantry Division, he was awarded the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman on August 23, 1945. Credited with single-handedly fighting off and killing fifteen Germans as well as demolishing three machine-gun emplacements - one from ten yards away - during the battle for Nuremberg in the Second World War, he was evacuated the day after the heroic event after sustaining injuries from a bullet to the face in a separate firefight. He was also awarded three Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts during his time in the army. On the day after Daly was awarded his Medal of Honor, a parade was held in Fairfield for both Daly and his father, a colonel who had been injured in France.

Daly was born in New York City in 1926, the son of a highly decorated WWI veteran. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point but did not graduate, instead enlisting in the Army as a private. He worked as a salesman for an oil company and as a real estate investor after the war.

Daly leaves behind his wife, Margaret Wallace Daly, a son, Michael, and a daughter, Deirdre Daly, as well as two sisters, a stepson and stepdaughter, and three grandsons.

Joseph Dwyer

Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, 31 years old, died on June 28 in North Carolina in the tragic aftermath of his time in Iraq, another casualty of a war that the American public has long lost faith in.

Dwyer enlisted as an Army medic right after 9/11 and suddenly became the face of America's heroism in 2003, at the beginning of the invasion, when a famous picture of Dwyer carrying a small Iraqi boy to safety was plastered in newspapers, TV footage, and magazine covers.

With a brother in the NYPD and another serving in the U.S. Air Force, Dwyer felt compelled to join the Army two days after 9/11, needing to do something to protect his family and his country. When he came home to El Paso, Texas a few months later, he was a changed man. Paranoid and gripped with fear and shock from his experience, he began what would become years of sporadic treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and, eventually, addiction. He became a Baptist, trying to find peace in scripture, but also sought comfort from drinking and inhaling spray fumes from cans of solvent. His wife eventually left him, afraid to expose herself and their young daughter any longer to his delusional and violent episodes. Despite countless efforts from his friends and parents to help him recover from the war, there seemed to be no cure. In October 2005, after an attempted intervention by friends failed, Dwyer shot up his apartment in a fit of delusion, insisting he could tell the SWAT team where the Iraqis were. He was arrested but discharged after the incident, and eventually moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina.

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

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

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.

William P. Ford.

William P. Ford, 72, died of esophageal cancer June 1 in his home in Montclair, New Jersey. He was a former Wall Street attorney who became an influential activist and leading advocate for justice in El Salvador after his sister Ita Ford and three more women, including two other Maryknoll sisters and a missionary, were murdered in Dec. 1980 during the civil war in El Salvador. In a 2002 civil trial in Florida, the federal court jury found Jos Guillermo Garca, El Salvador's past defense minister, and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, its past National Guard commander, liable for $54.6 million of injuries due to pain and suffering undergone by three Salvadoran immigrants to America who the two military officials had ordered to be tortured. While the verdict was not expressly tied to the murders of Ita Ford and the other churchwomen, it was clear that William Ford's perseverance in the case was directly linked to the conviction. At the time of the trial, the two generals were living in Florida under U.S. permission.

Ford was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1936 to William and Mildred O'Beirne Ford. He earned his B.A. from Fordham University in 1960 and his law degree from St. John's University in 1966. He began his law career as a clerk to a federal judge and later became a founding partner of Ford Marrin Esposito Witmeyer & Gleser.

Ford is survived by his wife, the former Mary Anne Heyman, to whom he had been married for 47 years, two sons, William Ford III and John, four daughters, Miriam, Ruth, Elizabeth, and Rebecca, a sister, and eight grandchildren.

Ford's daughter Ruth is now the director of the Maura Clarke - Ita Ford (MCIF) Center in Brooklyn, NY, named for Ford's sister and another of the women murdered. The organization seeks to assist immigrant women in learning English, discovering ways to support their families, and participating actively in their community.

John R. Moran

John R. Moran, 82, of Plainfield, New Jersey, passed away peacefully on August 21, 2008 at home. He and his wife, Lillian, were married for 59 years.

Born May 9, 1926 in Bayonne, New Jersey, he and his family had a summer home at Cedar Grove Beach Club, on Staten Island, N.Y., where he met his future wife, Lillian Quaranta, at the age 5.

John was educated by the Jesuits, at St. Peters Prep in Jersey City, before enlisting in the Navy at the age of 17. He served aboard the U.S.S. Auburn, where he saw action on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He also served aboard the U.S.S. Siboney, during the Korean Conflict. Following his distinguished war service, John served as a director of the Navy League, New York Council. He married and raised his family on Staten Island, where he became involved in the Democratic Party and served on various campaigns including the Presidential Campaign for President John F. Kennedy. His commitment to his faith and the education of his children was seen in his active involvement in the St. Joseph Hill Academy Fathers Club and the St. Charles Church Holy Name Society. He served as the President of the St. Joseph Hill Academy Fathers Club during the 1960s.

John enjoyed a successful career in the insurance industry, working for 33 years with the Continental Insurance Company. During his career with Continental, he held several senior level positions including President of Marine Office of America Corporation, in New York City; Chairman and President of First Insurance Company of Hawaii; and a senior officer of the Continental Corporation.

In addition to his wife, Lillian, John is survived by his sons John R. Moran, Jr. and his wife, Kathy, of Succasunna; Tom Moran and his wife, Joan, of N.Y.C.; his daughter, Bess Moran Zampella, and her husband Tony of Plainfield; his brother D. Perry Moran and sister Joan Cornell, and three grandchildren, Lisa Moran, John R. Moran III, and A.J. Zampella; and two great-grandchildren Kevin and Molly.

Carlin's Last Stand

The last week of July George Carlin's ashes were dispersed. He had asked his daughter, Kelly Carlin-McCall to deal with them within 30 days of his death in a manner that would respect his philosophy and outlook on life. With about 25 old friends from his old Irish NYC neighborhood (Morningside Heights), his daughter Kelly with his brother Patrick, his nephew Dennis and his son-in-law Bob McCall, started the dispersal at 120th and Riverside Dr., a spot called The Question Mark where George and his group of friends used to hang out in their youth. Kelly and the family then took him to Bleecker St. in Greenwich Village to a tree in front of the club The Bitter End to honor his creative beginnings, then to Lake Spofford in New Hampshire (Carlin went to camp there as a child and won many drama awards that were precious to him), then onto the family's property in Woodstock, and then finished with the remainder of the ashes in the Pacific Ocean underneath the Venice Pier.