- Born: 1943
James P. Carroll is best known for his work, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (1996), about the conflict between his father and himself over America's role in the Vietnam War. His father was General Joseph Carroll, the director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency during most of the war in Southeast Asia. James Carroll, spent a year in the ROTC program at Georgetown University and was honored as ROTC Cadet of the year in 1961. The following year Carroll decided to become a priest, entering the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers. In early 1969, he was ordained in New York by Terrence Cardinal Cooke, the U.S. military vicar. At the speech he gave at his first mass, the next day, he quoted a biblical passage from the prophet Ezekiel, referring to death and bones "burned by time and by desert wind, by the sun," and he added, "and by napalm." The addition of those words would cause an unresolved rift between him and his father.
Carroll left the priesthood five years later, married, and turned to teaching and writing in Boston, MA, where he writes a weekly column for The Boston Globe.
Most Famous Works
- An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (1996)
