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xiii In February 2002, Robert C. Barry, one of my longtime colleagues at Georgetown Preparatory School, in North Bethesda, Maryland, walked into the faculty office and asked me whether Prep had any graduates who had received the Medal of Honor. Bob uses such facts as extra-credit questions on his English vocabulary quizzes, questions that run the gamut from school history to geography to sports. He asked me because in 1989 I had written a history of the school for its bicentennial celebration. My book, however, covered only the period from 1789 to 1927, at the end of which Georgetown Prep legally separated from Georgetown University. Since I had not written about the WWII era, I turned to a short history of Prep from 1919 to 1969 written by William S. Abell, a Prep alumnus. When I consulted it for Medal of Honor recipients, I found the name of Michael Joseph Daly, class of 1941. Bob and I then went to the Internet and found the citation that accompanied his medal on the website of the Medal of Honor Society. Its description of his actions at Nuremberg, Germany, on April 18, 1945, astounded us. Bob included the question in his quiz, and I remained intrigued. The next day I asked Brian Ray, who handled alumni relations, if he had any current information on Mr. Daly. (I gained such respect for Michael Daly that I could never bring myself to address him other than as “Mr. Daly.”) It turned out that he did. Daly was alive and well and, at age seventy-seven, still living in his hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut. He had remained in contact with the school, and Brian had spoken with him by phone not long before. Buoyed by the news, I phoned Daly to ask if he would talk with me about his wartime experiences so that I could share them with my students and the rest of the Prep community. At first he seemed embarrassed, protesting that he was no hero, that the real heroes were the men who gave their lives during the war. But he kindly consented, especially when I pleaded the benefit that students in my US history classes at his alma mater would derive from learning and reflecting on his story. He insisted, however, that I tell the story “warts and all.” Thus began my association with a man whom I came to know mostly over the telephone. As I learned more about him, I became convinced that his story Preface xiv Preface deserved a book. Over the course of six years—I could work on the book only during summer vacation—Mr. Daly and I spent hours on the phone discussing aspects of his life in both war and peace. We also debated current religious, political, and military issues, and I enjoyed sparring good-naturedly with him. He loved words—poetry, history, epigrams—and wrote, often eloquently , in an elegant longhand. Diagnosed with cancer in the late spring of 2008, he died, surrounded by family, at his home in Fairfield on July 25. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of that word, among the most gracious, humble, kind, generous, and intelligent people I have ever had the privilege of knowing and loving. And, of course, he was a warrior-hero—one of the bravest of a generation that went off to war and saved the world. ...

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