Rear Admiral Philip Coady Jr.; Hub native led fleet in Gulf

Rear Admiral Philip J. Coady Jr. on board the USS Kitty Hawk. (Associated Press/file 1993)

In his quarters aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, Rear Admiral Philip J. Coady Jr. reminisced in 1993 about the long journey from growing up near Codman Square to commanding the US Navy's 12-ship task force in the Persian Gulf.

Expected to follow his father into Boston's banking community, he chose instead to sign up for officer training in the Navy, rather than wait to be drafted after graduating from college in the early 1960s.

"What I most liked about the Navy was that I'd be finished in three years," he told the Globe in January 1993, when three years had turned into three decades. "I looked myself in the mirror every day, and I asked myself whether going back to Boston to be a banker would really be more fun than this. I still ask myself and so far, for 30 years, the answer has been the same."

Retiring from active duty in 1995, Admiral Coady took on a new battle three years ago when, as a nonsmoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. As chairman of the Lung Cancer Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, D.C., he became an eloquent spokesman about a disease that, as he once wrote, "gets very little respect and even less funding."

Admiral Coady died of pulmonary fibrosis Monday in his Annandale, Va., home. He was 66.

He had a summer camp in Bridgton, Maine, and returned often to family homes in Scituate during his years in the Navy.

"To say we are devastated is an understatement," Laurie Fenton Ambrose, president of the Lung Cancer Alliance, wrote in a letter Tuesday announcing his death. "Rear Admiral Coady was a true American hero."

After serving aboard ships in Vietnam, his family said, Admiral Coady commanded the destroyer USS Conolly and the cruiser USS Antietam.

"He is one of the finest men I've ever worked with," Captain Michael J. McCamish, the Kitty Hawk's top pilot commander, told the Globe in January 1993. "He's extremely bright and has a great sense of humor. He knows how to break the tension without breaking the focus. He's also able to make everyone, no matter his job, feel he is playing an important role."

After his retirement from active duty, Admiral Coady became president and chief executive of the Navy Mutual Aid Association, a nonprofit veterans service organization in Arlington, Va., that helps sea service members and their survivors with federal benefits. He was diagnosed with cancer soon after retiring from the association in 2005.

"He had unending energy, an unending spirit to help others," said his daughter, Adrienne Sullivan of Falls Church, Va. "If someone else wasn't going to step up, he was going to step up to get things done."

For Admiral Coady, educating people about lung cancer was something that needed to be done.

"The public and the Congress have been content to blame it all on personal behavior," he wrote in November 2006, on the website military.com, about the tendency to attribute every lung cancer case to tobacco use. "The cloud of smoking has poisoned the climate for all lung cancer victims and has stifled the generosity of the American people.

"Many assume lung cancer patients must be smokers; therefore, they brought the disease upon themselves. As a lifelong nonsmoker, I smugly maintained that attitude until I was diagnosed with lung cancer 20 months ago. Every year, 20,000 people who never were smokers are diagnosed with this killer disease. It is not just about smokers."

Born in Boston, Philip James Coady Jr. graduated from Milton High School and from Tufts University before pursuing officer training with the Navy. He met Judy Greene in Scituate, where their families spent summers.

"They were childhood sweethearts," their daughter said. "My mom's older brother was a friend of my father's. They met when they were 10 or 11."

The Coadys married 43 years ago and lived in various places around the country as he rose through ranks and was promoted to rear admiral in 1989.

In 1971, he received a master's in business administration from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Two years ago, the school presented him the distinguished alumni award.

As an officer whose battle experience ranged from Vietnam to Iraq in the early 1990s, Admiral Coady knew how to size up an enemy, and he encouraged veterans at risk of lung cancer to schedule CT scans for early detection.

"When I was planning air defenses, I always used this simple fire doctrine: Shoot the wolf nearest the sled first," he wrote for the military.com website. "As a veteran, lung cancer may be the wolf that is closest to your sled."

And while he had been exposed to Agent Orange during his military service, along with carcinogens such as secondhand smoke, he fought the battle without rancor.

"One of the last things Dad told me was that he was faith-centered, he was family-centered," his daughter said. "Those were the important things for him."

"Most importantly, I have Judy, whose love, capacity for care, and good counsel know no bounds," Admiral Coady wrote in an e-mail to friends and family three days before he died. "Time may be short, but every moment in her company is sweet."

In addition to his wife and daughter Adrienne, Admiral Coady leaves another daughter, Meredith Pardo of Scituate; a son, Philip III of Falls Church, Va.; three sisters, Elizabeth Brickley of Winchester, Virginia Grondin of Bridgeton, Maine, and Marilyn Tufano of Lakeland, Fla.; three grandsons; and three granddaughters.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in St. Anthony Church in Falls Church, Va. Another service with full military honors will be held at 12:45 p.m. on Oct. 9 in the Old Post Chapel next to Arlington National Cemetery. Burial will be in Arlington National Cemetery.