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1st Lt Lawrence M. Fitzpatrick graduated from Christian Brothers Boys Central High School in 1936 and was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with the class of 1943.

He graduated from the Army Paratrooper School at Fort Benning, Georgia where he received the wings and boots of a paratrooper. He was sent overseas in November 1944.

Lt Fitzpatrick's heroism at Bastogne was received in a press release from the 101st Airborne Division in France and reads in part:
"Fitzpatrick led his rifle platoon against German forces ringing the city of Bastogne, the battered bastion of Belgium, last December when the vaunted offensive of Von Rundstedt was at the height of its breakthrough drive. The city was already under the German big guns when the 101st was ordered to its defense on December 18. Arriving within a few hours after orders were received, Lt Fitzpatrick's platoon had departed so hurriedly from base camp that the men were without adequate ammunition and were sparsely equipped. Only when they were marching to the fight a few hundred yards from the city outside Bastogne was the ammunition issued. Lt Fitzpatrick gathered it up as it was doled out from hastily established supply points along the route and from jeeps that moved up and down the column.

"We were all pretty much confused", Lt Fitzpatrick told Army interviewers at the time: "all anyone knew was that the Krauts had broken through somewhere. Other troops were leaving town - we seemed to be the only unit that was going to stay."

Although immeasurably outnumbered, it was troops like Lt Fitzpatrick and his men who repulsed the enemy's incessant attacks, halting the German 'Greif-Offensive' and eventually turning it into a costly withdrawal. One of his men, echoing the sentiments of the entire platoon, said afterwards, "We'd follow him through hell - by God; at Bastogne I think we did."
Lt Fitzpatrick was killed when he stepped on a German landmine during a night patrol after crossing the Moder river in the vicinity of Haguenau, France. He had joined the patrol of E Company whitout permission.