Flaherty refused to give up so easily on the world recovered from the whirlwind of steel.

 75 years ago today in 1945, as the world recovered from the whirlwind of steel that had engulfed the globe for six years, in Stamford Connecticut Hospital, Richard James Flaherty (pictured on the right) was born.

 Flaherty is best known for having been one of the smallest – if not the smallest – soldier in the U.S army and for his esteemed service during the Vietnam War. 

Descended from Irish immigrants of the Aran Islands of Ireland, Flaherty was practically fighting before he was even born. 

While Flaherty’s blood type was Rh-positive, that of his mother’s was Rh-negative.

 This meant that before he was even born his life was in peril as his mother’s blood produced anti-Rh antibodies to fight his positive Rh blood.

 It was believed that as a result of these complications, he was left with a hormonal imbalance that left him as a dwarf for the rest of his life. 

Flaherty was a proportional dwarf, in the sense that his head and limbs were all in proportion to the rest of his body. As an adult he grew to be just four feet and ten inches tall.

Besides this, little else is known of his early days as a child or teenager in post-war Connecticut. 

During this time though he developed a keen interest in the armed forces, in particular the Green Berets of the U.S special forces. 

His admiration for the special forces soon manifested into a goal to join their ranks but before he could do that he had to join the army. 

When he first tried to enlist he was rather predictably turned away due not only to his height but his weight.

 Yet not unlike the other Irish American war hero before him, Audie Murphy – who likewise was turned away due to his shortness of stature and was frequently mocked by his comrades before he proved his worth in battle – Flaherty refused to give up so easily.

 Determined to serve his country, he ate six meals a day just to make up the required weight of 100 pounds. 

This he managed to achieve but when he tried to enlist again he was turned down owing to his height once more – for which there was nothing he could have done. Still, he did not allow this to stop him. 

He contacted his Connecticut Senator, Christopher Dodd, and appealed for him to pull some strings on his behalf.

 The Senator gave him his wish and arranged for a special waiver on his behalf. Once inside the U.S army, Flaherty applied for Special Forces Training and Officer Candidate School.

The moment he had graduated from training, ready and eager for action, he volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division.

 During his time in Vietnam, Flaherty proved that what he lacked in height he could make up for in bravery and tenacity.

 He concerned himself greatly with the welfare of the soldiers under his command and one occasion rescued several of them who were pinned down by heavy enemy fire. For this act of bravery, he was awarded the Silver Star Award in 1968.

 During parachute operations he would throw himself out of the plane first – since he weighed so little his comrades would be able to see what way the wind carried him and ensure they did not lose him in the drop.

 His size proved to be of great use however when it came to clearing the ‘rat tunnels’ which the Viet Cong had riddled the earth with. 

After squeezing through the tight tunnel entrances, he would advance with flashlight, knife, and pistol in hand and kill anything and everything that crossed his path. 

By the end of his second tour in Vietnam he had been awarded a Gallantry Cross from the Republic of Vietnam, two Bronze Stars, and no less than five purple hearts.

By all rights, Flaherty was a war hero who should have returned as a giant amongst men just as Audie Murphy had before him. Yet the America Flaherty returned to after Vietnam differed greatly to that of 1945.

 There was no hero’s welcome for him. He took up residence down in Florida and drifted from one profession to another. 

His life thereat vanished into thin air seemingly, his movements unknown even to his friends and family. At some point during this time he became homeless – remaining so right up to the end of his days. 

During the night, people on the streets could hear him screaming in his sleep from night terrors.

 He suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and was haunted by the men he failed to save during his tours in Vietnam. He wrote to the Veterans Administration requesting treatment for his condition. 

When they requested he provide an explanation for his PTSD, he told them of all the horrors he had seen and endured, of brave men under his command who had been blown to pieces in front of him, and of having to retrieve the blasted legs of a dead comrade from a field. 

Around the year 2000, Flaherty was befriended by a police officer by the name of David Yuzuk. Over the years which followed, the homeless veteran gradually opened up to Yuzuk and told him his story.

 In 2015 then, at the age of 69, Flaherty was suddenly killed by a car in a hit-and-run incident one night. In the aftermath of his death, Yuzuk began digging further into his friend’s life.

 As he went through his correspondences and paperwork, it soon became apparent that Flaherty had been far from inactive after his time in Vietnam. 

In the 1980s he had allegedly been involved in an undercover Federal investigation which led to the arrest of two Green Berets. 

When Yuzuk found Flaherty’s passport he discovered that, right up until 2010, he had been taking trips to Cambodia, Venezuela, and Iraq.

 He had also been sending money to a contact in Thailand. Theories have arisen that all this time he was working as an undercover agent, as a mercenary, or as an international gunrunner. 

Though Flaherty was guaranteed a burial in Arlington Cemetery, he chose instead to be buried Forest Memorial Park next to Lisa Davis, a woman who worked with the homeless during the 1970s, was herself killed in a car accident, and who Flaherty claimed to have been engaged to at some point.