US PARAS 2 Passavanti, Joseph J. III

[John Robertson]

• SURNAME

Passavanti​

• FORENAME

Joseph J. III​

• UNIT

508 Infantry Regiment (Airborne) (Company C,1 Bn)​

• RANK

Private First Class​

• NUMBER

16891279​

• DATE OF DEATH

24th May 1968​

• AGE

20​

• GRAVESITE

Skyline Memorial Park,Monee,Will County,Illinois​

• ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

from Park Forest,Illinois​

born 7.11.1947​

son of Joseph J. II and Anne M. (nee Vena) Passavanti​

single​

attended Rich Central High School​

1 year service​

award Bronze Star​

promoted Cpl posthumously​

KIA Thua Thien Province,South Vietnam​

Vietnam Veterans Memorial,Washington,D.C. Panel 68E Line 6​

​

 

[Tony Skala]

So you will never ever see this but,

I visited a replica Vietnam War memorial in Nebraska. I randomly selected a name which was yours and decided to look you up. I can not find much about you other than what is posted here. I visited the actual memorial several years ago and did not have the same feeling looking at the replica. I was more enraged visiting the replica for a few reasons.

1. The placard indicated the granite was sourced from the same quarry as the memorial in Washington. From Bangalore India.... Not even a war memorial can be made from materials in the United States.

2. I purchased some tools a week earlier. Milwaukee brand from Home Depot. It broke on the first use. Fished the packaging out of the trash and flipped it over to see... "MADE IN VIETNAM" what irks me is that an iconic American tool brand that used to be very reliable now being made in a country we sent 59,000+ service members to die in, making a tool capitalizing on the namesake made by American workers and marketing them as if they are still being made here in the US but are now being made in a country that was a former enemy. You sir sacrificed your life so industrialists can make tools in a communist nation for next to nothing. Not worth it. Not even by gorilla math we use to balance our books now...... Your life was wasted and I am ashamed.........I am so angered right now I can not even type. I hope there is something on the other side of this thing and if there is I hope to meet you.........Tell you how much I appreciate what you did and went though for an ungrateful nation but a grateful citizen.

 

[rharris612]

I knew Joe. He was my brother’s best friend and a good friend of the entire family. He would appreciate your comments. He was a very friendly young man who cared about everyone he knew. Always up to have a good time and a good laugh. His laugh was contagious. Thanks for your post.

 

[CraigM]

I knew Joe throughout high school and earlier. He always had a smile on his face and was just a fun person to be around. I'll never forget that just before we had a Junior High chorus performance, for which all the boys had to wear black pants and a white shirt, Joe forgot to put the top on a black ink fountain pen, and, while goofing around with some of us, shoved it into the left breast pocket of his white shirt. Of course much of the ink ran out of the pen soaking into his shirt below the breast pocket. We thought that was the funniest thing we'd seen, but - still with a big grin on his face (he also thought it was hysterical) - Joe had to show the chorus director what had happened. She solved this disaster just minutes before the performance by having Joe stand very close to each of us standing alongside him, while making sure he kept the left front of his shirt hidden behind a tall girl with poofy hair standing on the riser in front of him. Joe had a distinctive New York accent (we'd never met anyone before with a NY accent), which we thought was a hoot: "earl" for "oil", "berl" for "boil", "goil" for "girl" and so on. Joe's loss was such a waste of a truly good guy.