{"id":163,"date":"2016-05-12T07:21:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T02:21:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/?page_id=163"},"modified":"2025-03-15T01:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T20:01:13","slug":"michael-j-carley","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/exhibit\/michael-j-carley\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael J. Carley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Carley seated in military air transport. Photograph, circa 1966.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Michael J. Carley ’62 
(1st Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, 1964\u20131967. Killed in action, Nui Dang, Vietnam, February 27, 1967.)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most young men were still angling for their drivers\u2019 licenses when 16-year-old Michael John Carley helmed his first flight as a licensed pilot. While he remained close with his parents, brother, and two sisters throughout his life, Mike spent most of his childhood at elite boarding schools in Western Connecticut, winning scholarships to attend first the Indian Mountain School, then Hotchkiss School.   During his sophomore year of high school he earned his pilot\u2019s license, and senior year, Mike accepted an ROTC scholarship to attend Brown University, ensuring he\u2019d have a future up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike arrived on Brown\u2019s leafy campus in the fall of 1958. He became known as a nice guy with swagger\u2014confident, bright, athletic, and charming. Socially, Mike stayed close with longtime  boarding school,but he also made friends with his brothers in fraternity Alpha Delta Phi, and with his teammates on the hockey field. A star player, Mike looked up to his hockey coach so much that he would later remember Coach Fullerton\u2019s rousing pep talks on a tape sent home from Vietnam, his voice warm for the memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“He had a lot of bravado,” remembers his widow Connie Worthington, “but was such a kind person that you saw that as well as the\u2014the collegiate sort of guy. And it turns out that he just loved Brown.” Mike was preparing for his last semester at Brown when he met Connie Worthington on a hazy night in the summer of 1963. The two were guests at a party in Bristol, Rhode Island, and introduced by mutual friend Bill Twaddell. Connie, a Providence native, was about to start her sophomore year at Mount Holyoke. When Bill introduced the two, the connection \u201cwas immediate, overpowering, wonderful,\u201d Connie remembers. \u201cHe had asked me to marry him the night we met, when he was not in a state to ask anyone to marry,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their first date some days later, Mike insisted on taking Connie flying. \u201cThat was one of the things that I loved about Mike,\u201d says Connie. \u201cHe wanted me to see what he loved right away. There wasn\u2019t much guile in him.\u201d  By January of 1964, when Mike finally completed his degree in Sociology, the two were engaged to be married. After returning from his mandatory stint at Officer Candidate School in Quantico, Virginia in order to fulfill his NROTC contract, Mike returned in the late spring and the couple married on June 6, 1964. After the ceremony, guests gathered in the oaken-walled Brown Faculty Club for a reception hosted by Connie\u2019s parents. The next day, the two headed south for flight training.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Michael Carley and Connie Worthington wedding group, reception at the Brown Faculty club. June 6th, 1964.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Mike’s training came with extensive moving around, and their first stop was the major naval air base in Pensacola. In the fall of 1964, after Mike had made first lieutenant at Pensacola, the Carleys headed east to a small auxiliary base in Milton, Florida for air carrier training. On November 7, in a civilian hospital in Avalon Beach, the couple welcomed Mike Jr. From Milton, the Carleys moved to another naval auxiliary base in Pace, FL, before transferring to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, which sprawled over 250 square miles of land in coastal Onslow County, North Carolina. They would remain there from the spring of 1965 until Mike was called to Vietnam the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Carleys flourished at Camp Lejeune. \u201cIn that squadron Mike really came into his own,\u201d Connie remembers. \u201cHe\u2019d always felt like the scholarship kid, that everybody had done him charitable favors\u2026. The thing that we both loved about the Marine Corps was you got where you were for what you yourself did for the Corps, for the squadron\u2014the quality of your work, the quality of your participation and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike received his call of duty to Vietnam in the spring of 1966. With a month off before he was scheduled to deploy, Mike, Connie, and 18-month-old Mike Jr. headed back to the Chepachet cabin where they had spent their wedding night. Connie remembers having \u201clots of discussions, and \u2018what if\u2019 conversations\u201d with Mike. An entire year had passed since the fall of Saigon, and everyone understood that Mike might not make it home. \u201cOther families sent their men off into war zones and hadn\u2019t expected that anything might happen to them,\u201d Connie says. But she and Mike were pragmatic, deciding that if something happened to Mike in the service, she\u2019d go back to school, get her degree, and rely on her parents\u2019 help to raise Mike Jr. \u201cIt\u2019s just the path that I had chosen by choosing Mike,\u201d Connie says. \u201cNot that I felt like I had any choice.\u201d The frank talk allowed them to relax and enjoy what would be their last weeks together in Rhode Island. In June of 1966, Mike flew to Camp Pendleton to prepare for deployment to Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In country, Mike was assigned to HMM-362, a helicopter squadron distinguished for being the first Marine aircraft unit to serve in Vietnam. Known as the Ugly Angels, Mike\u2019s squad flew Sikorsky H-34Ds, heavy, bottle-nosed birds designed to accommodate transport of troops and equipment in all weather conditions, although they became best known for their medevac missions. Mike joined the Ugly Angels at Ky Ha, a small base near Chu Lai in Quang Tin Province within the I Corps Tactical Zone, a swath of American-occupied land in the northernmost region of South Vietnam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike sent regular letters and audio recordings home, cooing to his son and telling Connie and their family about his missions and life in the camps. He spoke about the beauty of the country, the wonder of seeing Da Nang\u2019s Monkey Mountain, and the \u201cimportant work\u201d that CARE, an antipoverty NGO, was doing for Vietnamese children in his area. In his very first month, Mike flew wing to the helicopter carrying John Wayne when the movie star made one of his well publicized tours of support. It was also the month that he saw his first tragedy. \u201cA friend of his from training was killed by friendly fire, and he was so angry, so angry,\u201d says Connie. Mike said that it \u201c\u2018shouldn\u2019t have happened.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Mike Carley (on right) and Mike Kennett on the transit line at Cubi Point. Photograph 1966.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Connie would get to see Mike one last time, for a Hawaiian R&R at the end of January 1967. (They had been scheduled to meet that March, but another soldier dropped out at the last minute.) With Mike Jr. safely in her parents\u2019 care, Connie packed a bag and boarded a plane for Honolulu. \u201cI was really worried about the R&R,\u201d she admits, \u201cBecause I had been on a college campus that was mobilizing against the war, and he had been in a war zone. And I was afraid that we might have grown apart somehow.\u201d Although Connie would only join the antiwar movement until after Mike\u2019s death, protests had already begun on Brown\u2019s campus. She was relieved, though, to find that nothing had changed between her and Mike: \u201cThe minute we got together, it was still the same old, same old. I mean, it was just wonderful that we\u2019d had such totally different experiences, which we talked about, but it was just great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe blew a lot of money, we ate a lot of wonderful meals, took a lot of long walks,\u201d Connie recalls. \u201cWe rented a car one day and drove around, so we ended up in pineapple fields, and so on.\u201d For Mike and Connie, the five days of R&R were idyllic. \u201cAnd then he left at the crack of dawn,” Connie remembers, “and I saw him off and came back to the hotel.” After Mike returned to Ky Ha, \u201cWe were back to the norm,\u201d says Connie. \u201cI was almost sure when he went to Vietnam first that he wasn\u2019t going to come back,\u201d<\/strong> she remembers. But something about seeing Mike again allowed her to relax. \u201cI was convinced he was coming back after the R&R\u2026.I was absolutely sure everything was going to be fine.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than three weeks later, in the afternoon of February 27, 1967, Captain Jim Hippert led a team of Angels on a mission to transport troops and supplies some 55 miles south to Duc Pho. Hippert flew lead with Mike as copilot. The Angels rose up into a thick grey rain and the bleak weather forced the team to fly low, hovering just above the treetops. As they curbed left to make an eastward descend into Nui Dang, Mike\u2019s helicopter was hit hard with small arms and .50 cal gunfire. Enemy rounds pierced the front windscreen, hitting Mike in the face and Hippert in the leg. By the time Hippert wrestled the bullet-riddled bird onto the muddy ground, Mike was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a black car pulled up to the door of her parents\u2019 home, Connie was watching Mike Jr. color at the kitchen counter. A priest got out, then a uniformed Marine. \u201cThe doorbell rang and you knew as they got out of the car what had happened,\u201d<\/strong> Connie says. The priest was from St. Sebastian\u2019s, and the Marine was Second Lieutenant John Marshall, the casualty officer assigned to the Carleys. The men didn\u2019t know much, only that Mike had been killed in action. \u201cI just was stunned. Just stunned,\u201d Connie says. \u201cI didn\u2019t fall apart. I just remember sitting there, looking at my shoes and at their feet. And then, after a little bit, I thought, \u2018Where is Little Michael?\u2019 He came out from the kitchen, took off one red sneaker and threw it at John Marshall, took off the other red sneaker and threw it at the priest and laughed. And life went on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Morning Worship and Alumni Memorial Program from Brown University Commencement, 1972.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And life did go on, but it was not the same. “I have always said to people that that was the turning point in my life” says Connie. “That was the event that changed everything, and still dominates it….I will always be a Vietnam widow. It always defines me.”<\/strong> Mike\u2019s death marked a turning point in Connie\u2019s political and personal life. Brutal footage of the war kept streaming into American living rooms, and the antiwar movement gathered strength as the conflict intensified. Connie joined the antiwar protests on Brown\u2019s campus, and in the fall of 1968 and again in December of 1969, Connie published articles in support of the protest movement in the magazine of the Providence Junior League. \u201cIt became a different war after his death,\u201d she reflects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he never enlisted, Mike Jr., who lives with Asperger\u2019s, has travelled with American Veterans (AMVETS) and Veterans for Peace to complete postwar service projects in Iraq, Cuba, and Bosnia. Now in his 50s, Mike Jr. has kept in touch with the Carleys and some of his father\u2019s Marine Corps friends, even attending Ugly Angels reunions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of Connie\u2019s life has been defined by Mike\u2019s death. \u201cThat\u2019s the event that changed everything, and still dominates it,\u201d she says. \u201cIt won\u2019t disappear. Yes, time has healed the wounds, but I don\u2019t want the world to go to war.\u201d Connie and her husband, a Brown professor, continue to make their home in Rhode Island. \u201cI couldn\u2019t ask for a better partner in life. But I will always be a Vietnam widow. It always defines me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael J. Carley ’62 (1st Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, 1964\u20131967. Killed in action, Nui Dang, Vietnam, February 27, 1967.) Most young men were still angling for their drivers\u2019 licenses when 16-year-old Michael John Carley helmed his first flight as a licensed pilot. While he remained close with his parents, brother, and two sisters throughout his life, Mike spent most … Michael J. Carley<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"parent":39,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-163","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":492,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/163\/revisions\/492"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/create\/vietnam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}