Fitzgerald, Joseph Edward
Army Staff sergeant

Joseph Edward Fitzgerald, age 28, from Northbridge, Massachusetts, Worcester county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: May 31, 1967
Death details: On February 6, 1997, the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA, now DPAA) identified the remains of Staff Sergeant Joseph Edward Fitzgerald, missing from the Vietnam War.

Staff Sergeant Fitzgerald joined the U.S. Army from Vermont and was a member of the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division. On May 31, 1967, he was a member of a long-range reconnaissance patrol in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam. The patrol was ambushed by enemy forces, and SSG Fitzgerald was killed in the incident. A search team sent to the patrol’s location did not find SSG Fitzgerald’s remains. In 1994, a joint U.S. and Vietnamese investigative team excavated a burial site associated with SSG Fitzgerald’s loss and recovered remains there. In February 1997, SSG Fitzgerald was identified from among those remains.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency