Retired Navy Captain Will Give Keynote Speech at West Hartford Veterans Day Ceremony

Dr. Karen Daly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, will speak at the Connecticut Veterans Memorial in West Hartford on Friday morning.

Capt. Karen Daly will give the keynote speech at the Connecticut Veterans Memorial in West Hartford on Nov. 11, 2016. Submitted photo

Submitted

Retired USN Captain, Dr. Karen Daly, will be the guest speaker for the 2016 Veterans Day Ceremony, Nov. 11, 2016, 11 a.m., at the Connecticut Veterans Memorial West Hartford, located at the corner of Farmington Avenue and North Main Street.

The ceremony is organized by the American Legion Hayes-Velhage Post 96. The event also features Sen. Beth Bye, Mayor Shari Cantor, Town Council Minority Leader Denise Hall, Deacon James Hickey, and American Legion Commander Moe Fradette. The national anthem will be sung by Outlook from Kingswood-Oxford School and taps will be played by Peter Roe.

A native of Tonawanda, NY, Daly received her B.S. degree in pharmacy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980 and while employed as a registered pharmacist, she attended the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine on a Navy Health Professions Scholarship and completed Officer Indoctrination School in Newport, RI, during the summers.  In June 1984 she earned her Doctor of Medicine degree and was commissioned an active duty Lieutenant.

From July 1985 until October 1986, she served as the first female general medical officer aboard the destroyer tender USS Cape Cod (AD-43), and made a Westpac cruise to Japan and the Far East.

In July 1993, Daly returned to training in Psychiatry at the Naval Medical Center, San Diego, CA and completed her second residency in July 1996, and became board-certified in psychiatry in 1999. From July 1996 until August 1999, she served at the NMC Pearl Harbor, HI, as a staff psychiatrist, as well as the senior medical officer of the clinic.

Daly served as a staff psychiatrist and the Mental Health Department head at Naval Hospital Bremerton, WA, from August 2004 until July 2008, and became an assistant professor of psychiatry for the University of Washington. She taught Psychiatry to NH Bremerton’s Family Medicine residents and in 2005 became board-certified in the new subspecialty of psychosomatic medicine. Daly also served as staff psychiatrist at Naval Branch Health Clinic, Groton, CT.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, Daly deployed four times. In March 2002, she participated in a SPRINT mission to JTF-160 in Guantanamo Bay Cuba to provide psychiatric care to Camp X-Ray detainees and their guards. In March 2003, she deployed as the psychiatrist with Fleet Hospital 15 from Portsmouth, VA, to Kuwait for the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). From May to November 2006, she deployed to Camp Taji Iraq as the psychiatrist with the U.S. Army’s 883rd Combat Stress Control unit. From March to July 2009 she served as the psychiatrist aboard the USNS Comfort (TAH-20), during its Continuing Promise 2009 humanitarian cruise to the Caribbean and Central and South America she “crossed the line” and earned her Surface Warfare Medical Officer device during this voyage.

Daly’s decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal (2), the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (2), the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the GWOT Expeditionary Medal, the GWOT Service Medal, and the Navy Pistol Marksmanship Medal.

Since her retirement in 2014, Daly has worked at Natchaug Psychiatric Hospital and now works as a civilian psychiatrist at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Clinic.

Daly is married to Eric Schultz of St. Louis, MO. They have one son, Brendan, and reside in Niantic, CT.

The Connecticut Veterans Memorial West Hartford is a unique testimonial dedicated to all members of the Armed Services who served the United States beginning with the earliest conflict in our country’s history, the King Philip War, up to the present Global War on Terror.

This Veterans Memorial is a sculptural expression of time and emotion that commemorates the history of all wars. The Memorial is a circular Wall of Peace that salutes those who gave their lives for our country. The wall is constructed of blocks of polished black granite in the form of a circle. At each point along the wall when our Armed Forces went into conflict, the smooth circular wall is violently broken, and the names of the West Hartford veterans who gave their lives during that conflict are engraved on the Wall of Peace.