This Deceased Coast Guard Profile is not currently maintained by any Member.
If you would like to take responsibility for researching and maintaining this Deceased profile please click
HERE
Contact Info
Home Town Boston, Massachusetts
Last Address Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts
Date of Passing Feb 17, 2014
Location of Interment New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery - Boscawen, New Hampshire
Wall/Plot Coordinates Unknown
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
Joseph Cataldo was born on January 18, 1929, in Boston, Massachusetts. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in July 19, 1946, and served as a Hospital Corpsman until receiving an honorable discharge on August 19, 1949. He next enlisted in the U.S. Air Force Reserve on May 23, 1952, and served until receiving his commission as a 2d Lt in the U.S. Army Reserve on October 7, 1957. During this time, Lt Cataldo completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry at Harvard University in 1953, and then attended Boston University School of Medicine. He went on active duty in the Army beginning October 14, 1957, and remained a student medical officer while attending Boston University School of Medicine until he completed medical school in June 1958. Capt Cataldo next performed his General Medical Officer Intern Training at the U.S. Army Hospital at Fort Benning, Georgia, from June 1958 to July 1959, followed by service as a Medical Officer with the 10th General Dispensary in West Germany from July 1959 to May 1960, and then as a Medical Officer and then Commanding Officer of the 209th General Dispensary in West Germany from May 1960 to August 1962. He attended additional medical training at Johns Hopkins University from August 1962 to June 1963, followed by additional medical training and then residency training at the U.S. Army Hospital at Fort Ord, California, from June 1963 to June 1965. Maj Cataldo continued his medical training at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, from June 1965 to May 1966, and then served as Commanding Officer of the 20th Preventive Medicine Unit in South Vietnam from November 1966 to June 1967, followed by service as a Surgeon with the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from June 1967 to July 1969. LTC Cataldo attended Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, from August 1969 to June 1970, and then served as Chief of the Communicable Disease and Immunology Research Branch with the Army Medical Research and Development Command at the Pentagon from June 1970 until his retirement from the Army on December 1, 1974. During this time, Col Cataldo served with the Redwine Security Group during the Son Tay Raid, a clandestine mission to rescue American Prisoners of War in North Vietnam on November 21, 1970. After retiring from the Army, Dr. Cataldo opened a private practice in Alexandria, Va. He moved to New England in the 1980s, first working as a consultant for Blue Cross Blue/Shield of Maine and later as an emergency room doctor at the Elliot Hospital in Manchester. Joseph Cataldo died on February 17, 2014, and was buried at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, New Hampshire.
Vietnam was the longest war in American history and the most unpopular American war of the 20th century. It resulted in nearly 60,000 American deaths and in an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, a necessary war, or whether it was a noble cause, or an idealistic, if failed, effort to protect the South Vietnamese from totalitarian government.
Summary:
Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. The French defeat at the Dien Bien Phu was followed by a peace conference in Geneva. As a result of the conference, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam received their independence, and Vietnam was temporarily divided between an anti-Communist South and a Communist North. In 1956, South Vietnam, with American backing, refused to hold unification elections. By 1958, Communist-led guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong, had begun to battle the South Vietnamese government.
To support the South's government, the United States sent in 2,000 military advisors--a number that grew to 16,300 in 1963. The military condition deteriorated, and by 1963, South Vietnam had lost the fertile Mekong Delta to the Viet Cong. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson escalated the war, commencing air strikes on North Vietnam and committing ground forces--which numbered 536,000 in 1968. The 1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese turned many Americans against the war.
The next president, Richard Nixon, advocated Vietnamization, withdrawing American troops and giving South Vietnam greater responsibility for fighting the war. In 1970, Nixon attempted to slow the flow of North Vietnamese soldiers and supplies into South Vietnam by sending American forces to destroy Communist supply bases in Cambodia. This act violated Cambodian neutrality and provoked antiwar protests on the nation's college campuses.
From 1968 to 1973, efforts were made to end the conflict through diplomacy. In January 1973, an agreement was reached; U.S. forces were withdrawn from Vietnam, and U.S. prisoners of war were released. In April 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to the North, and Vietnam was reunited.
Consequences
1. The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million Vietnamese deaths.
2. Congress enacted the War Powers Act in 1973, requiring the president to receive explicit Congressional approval before committing American forces overseas.
