Richard Fitzgibbon: The First Vietnam Casualty

In 1956, U.S. Air Force Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr. was stationed in South Vietnam, handing out candy to local children near Saigon. He encountered a drunken fellow airman who suddenly shot him without provocation, making Fitzgibbon the first American to die in the Vietnam conflict. For decades, his death was excluded from official war records because it was classified as a murder, not combat. After years of campaigning by his family, his name was finally added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1999.

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