In Justin Herman Plaza, at the foot of Market Street, San Francisco will today honour its Vietnam War dead. More than a quarter-century after the fall of Saigon, the city at the epicentre of the anti-war movement is rendering its first official homage to the 163 San Franciscans who lost their lives in the bitterly divisive conflict. Veterans of Woodstock may be forgiven a double take as Country Joe McDonald pays acoustic tribute to the dead. Country Joe, whose I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag became the anthem of anti-war protesters, whose off-colour, anti-establishment "Gimme-an-F" cheer earned him a lifetime ban from the Ed Sullivan Show? But while McDonald - a US navy veteran - ticked off the brass, he points out that he never confused the war and the warriors, nor disrespected the men in the ranks. The grunts understood. For many, the biting sarcasm of Country Joe's lyrics captured the unintentional absurdities of war, just as Bill Mauldin's cartoons had for their fathers in the second World War. After Vietnam, they invited Joe to play benefits for veterans' causes.
Irish surnames
As might be expected in a centre of Irish immigration, San Francisco's memorial plaque has its share of familiar surnames: Barrett, Dunagan, Lowery, Lynch, Murphy, O'Connor, Monahan, Quill. One particular soldier who listed San Francisco as his US home of record had a more recent connection with the city than the Irish-Americans born and bred there. Terence Patrick Fitzgerald, born in Paddington, London, really considered himself a Kerryman. That's where his father James came from, before leaving for London, where he married Sabina Garvey from Galway. And that's where Terry spent his formative teenage years, living on the family farm down near Derrynane, home of The Liberator. He returned to London at 16, but had wanderlust in his feet. "It wasn't long," his eldest brother John recalls, "before he was off, firstly as a tunneller, living on site, working all round the clock - a very tough life which no doubt stood him well in later life." Then, says John, "he went off around the world, as a tin miner in Bolivia, a demolition expert in Jakarta, a gold miner and sheep herder in Australia, a postman in Alaska." In 1965, as US marines landed in Vietnam, Terry ended up in San Francisco, where he was given the option of joining the US forces or returning to Europe. "He chose the former," John explains, "as he wished to stay in America and gain citizenship."
It was the surname and the Irish accent that first caught the attention of Nicholas Ryan, a Clonmel-born infantryman, as he trained for Vietnam at Fort Lewis, in Washington State. The draftee from Tipperary and the quiet volunteer from Kerry became fast friends. "We sailed from Seattle," Ryan recalls, "in September 1966." On board, they attended Mass together every morning. Before reaching Vietnam, the Irishmen made a pact. If one was killed, the other would make sure his remains got safely home.
Caught in crossfire
An infantryman in Fitzgerald's squad remembers May 26th, 1967 as a particularly bad day. "We were working our way up a ridgeline, and it made a jog to the left. Fitzgerald took a team from our squad to find the best route to the top of the hill. Soon after he left we were hit. They came back to help and were caught in a crossfire. Fitzgerald and two others from the team were killed. We carried them out after the battle." The citation for the posthumously awarded Silver Star describes how Cpl Fitzgerald's timely and decisive actions, combined with his calmness and leadership under fire, prevented a North Vietnamese Army unit from over-running his outnumbered comrades.
The news quickly reached Ryan, who had broken a leg and was recuperating at the 4th Infantry Division base camp. His commanding officer appreciated Ryan's pact with his friend, but pointed out that decisions regarding burial were properly the prerogative of the next of kin. Confident that Fitzgerald was laid to rest in Kerry, Ryan completed his tour and returned to his wife in California. Like most Vietnam veterans, he put the war as far behind him as possible, immersing himself in the daily routines of earning a living and raising a family. A quarter-century passed before he could return to Ireland to search for Fitzgerald's grave. He spent holidays tramping through Kerry cemeteries, checking every headstone. Frustrated, he sought help from the office of the California senator Barbara Boxer. Last November, a letter from her staff assistant Jennifer Gleason solved one mystery and raised a new one. Terence Patrick Fitzgerald was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Although Ryan remembered that Fitzgerald had family in London, it never occurred to him that the soldier with the Kerry accent was born there. And Fitzgerald had so closely identified himself with his ancestral Kerry home that he never bothered to mention it.
Call from England
In January this year, a letter from Mr D. J. Burkett, secretary of the General Cemetery Company at Kensal Green, explained that the Data Protection Act prevented him from releasing information on the person responsible for Terence Patrick Fitzgerald's grave. He could, however, under the circumstances, consider passing on a letter from Nicholas Ryan. A week after Ryan posted his letter, John Fitzgerald telephoned him from England. "After 30-plus years," John later wrote, "it comes as a bit of a shock to resurrect those sad times again. I was pleased to learn you were a good friend of Terry's, as he hardly stayed long enough in one place to build strong relationships." Photographs and memorabilia have been exchanged, along with mutual invitations. Soon John Fitzgerald will rub his fingers across his brother's name on a bronze plaque in San Francisco, and Nicholas Ryan will go to London to close a chapter of his life.