I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater.
As a matter of fact, I decided in high school that I was going to go to the seminary. And I did study with the Paulist Fathers for two years after high school in full anticipation of becoming a priest.
I was a grunt, walking around in the jungle of Vietnam, trying not to find the enemy. Because I am so big, they were going to give me either a heavy radio or a huge machine gun to carry. I carried a radio.
