Methodist Chaplain Ambrosio Salazar Grandea
Sixteen chaplains were killed during the Vietnam War. One was Methodist: Chaplain (Major) Ambrosio Salazar Grandea.
Ambrosio Grandea was born on Corregidor in the Philippines on August 22, 1932. He was the second of seven children born to Primitiva Salazar Grandea and Andres Gallenero Grandea Sr. His father served 30 years with the U.S. Army and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Grandea received his bachelor’s degree from Western Maryland College, where he was on the school boxing team. He earned a Master of Divinity degree at Boston University and was a clergy member of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of Methodist Church. During his training, he served student pastorates in Cleveland and in Charleston, New Hampshire.
He was married to Jacinta “Jaya” Martinez, who was born March 9, 1934 to Angel Martinez and Maria Tamondong in Manila, Philippines. Jacinta was raised in the Philippines and moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1956. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of the Philippines and completed post-graduate studies in Boston, where she met Ambrosio. She and Ambrosio were married in in 1957, and the couple resided in New Hampshire during his student pastorate there.
Grandea was endorsed as a chaplain by the Methodist Commission on Chaplains and entered the Army as a chaplain in 1961. During his career, he was stationed in Maryland, Germany, and Fort Campbell, Kentucky where he became airborne qualified.
During the Vietnam War, Grandea was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry, which was then assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. The unit arrived in Vietnam in November 1966, where he would earn a Silver Star, one of the nation’s highest awards for gallantry. The citation reads:
On 6 May 1967 Chaplain Grandea distinguished himself while accompanying Company A, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division on a search and destroy operation near Thanh Hoa. One platoon of the company had been receiving devastating and accurate automatic and small arms fire from enemy forces to the front and flanks which wounded several men. Chaplain Grandea was with the Command Group when the firing started. As he heard the cries of “medic,” he left the Command Group, which was not receiving fire and crawled forward to the wounded soldiers. Paying no heed to the heavy volume of fire being directed at the platoon by enemy troops both on the ground and in the trees, Chaplain Grandea moved to each of the wounded and assisted the medics in the administration of first aid. Shouting words of encouragement not only to the stricken men but also to those repelling the attack, he inspired the men of the platoon to fight with renewed vigor and determination. Chaplain Grandea’s courageous actions were in large part responsible for the defeat of the enemy. His unselfish gallantry is in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit and the United States Army.
Mrs. Grandea was working as a nurse in Baltimore when she learned of her husband’s wounds. The Army’s messages were encouraging at first, indicating that his wounds were not serious. With each passing day, however, the news became more grim. She attempted to fly to be with him in the Philippines at her own expense, but an Army officer met her at the airport in San Francisco with the news that her husband had died.
After her husband’s death, Jacinta volunteered for the Army Nurse Corps on the condition that she be sent to Vietnam. “We are engaged in a tough war in Vietnam,” she said, “All of us have to do our little bit to end the task with success and honor.”
On December 23, 1967, she was sworn in as an Army officer at Fort Meade in Maryland, on the same day that she received her husband’s posthumous Silver Star and Purple Heart.
The newly commissioned First Lieutenant Jacinta Grandea was immediately sent to Vietnam as she requested. While in Vietnam, she met James Lupton, a Presbyterian chaplain. She and Lupton married in 1969. After the war, the couple settled in Vermont, where she founded Jabbok Ministries and Counseling with her husband. Jacinta died in 2022 at the age of 88.
In November 1972, the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation in Philadelphia posthumously awarded Ambrosio Grandea the Chaplain’s Gold Medallion. His mother, his widow, his brother, and the Army Chief of Chaplains were among the guests present as the ceremony.
Chaplain Grandea’s Silver Star citation puts him in the grade of captain, but his grave marker shows him as a major, suggesting that he was promoted posthumously.
Chaplain (Major) Ambrosio Salazar Grandea is buried in Section 2 Site E-186-1 in Arlington National Cemetery. His name appears on panel 21E/97 of the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The primary source for this essay is The Army Chaplaincy 1945-75, Rodger R. Venzke, Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Washington DC, 1977, p. 154. Additional material, including family comments, comes from information on veteran-run websites, online obituaries, and Find-A Grave.
* 1-14 IN and its higher headquarters were reassigned from the 25th Infantry Division to the 4th Infantry Division in August 1967. The unit may have actually been assigned to 25 ID when the actions took place but belonged to 4 ID when the awards were processed. Chaplain Grandea’s grave in Arlington is also marked “4th Infantry Division”
** While the official Chief of Chaplains history and other sources say, “mortar attack,” web comments attributed to his brother and a note on a non-governmental website for veterans of the 14th Infantry Regiment say, “booby trap”. The official history is footnoted with references to contemporaneous publications and Grandea’s official military record. The regimental association puts the site of the incident in Quang Ngai Province. The “Virtual Wall” puts the incident in Quang Tin Province. The regiment’s website lists the names of several other soldiers killed in a mortar attack on Hill 54 in Quang Tin Province on May 25, 1967, and one soldier killed by fragmentation wounds on the same day in Quang Ngai Province. In a comment posted on posted on December 28, 2014 on the website “Angels, They Do Walk Among Us,” a commenter identified as John FFehil (sic) said that he met Chaplain Grandea on a helicopter flying into a forward camp in Quang Tin Province. The chaplain made a lasting impression on him and invited him to “mass”. He never saw the chaplain again, but the base took fire the next morning. He said that he heard that the chaplain and his assistant had been hurt.
