Emil Joseph Kapaun was born on April 20, 1916 at Pilsen, Kansas to a Czech-American Kapaun family. Ordained priest for the Diocese of Wichita in 1940, Emil served as parish priest before volunteering for the US Army Chaplain Corps in 1944.
During the World War II Pacific Theater, Emil served as Army chaplain in the India-Burma theater.
In 1950, following the outbreak of the Korean War, Emil volunteered to serve as chaplain to the 8th Cavalry Regiment.
In November 1950, during the Battle of Unsan — the catastrophic US Army defeat by the Chinese People's Volunteer Army — Emil refused to evacuate the wounded American soldiers, famously staying behind with the wounded and being captured with them.
During the 7-month Prisoner-of-War imprisonment at the Pyoktong POW Camp — under systematic Chinese-Korean torture and starvation — Emil undertook the systematic clandestine Catholic ministry to the American POWs: the secret Masses, bathing the dying, washing the clothes of the sick, sharing his meager food, and the systematic personal encouragement.
Emil died at the Pyoktong POW Camp on May 23, 1951 at the age of 35 — of malnutrition, exposure, and pneumonia.
In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Emil the Medal of Honor — the highest US military decoration — posthumously.
The cause of canonization was opened 1993 by the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA.