A Port Richmond man sold T-shirts for a war memorial that opened this week in Philly history

He was a 5-foot-nothing 60-something with a three-pack-a-day Pall Mall habit and a hard name to pronounce — let alone spell.

But Steve Kwasiborski (pronounced quasi-BOAR-skee) was from Port Richmond.

He shoved it to the Nazis in World War II as part of the U.S. Army’s “Fightin’ 69th” Division, and then dedicated his life to remembering those who never came back.

So in 1987, the retired truck driver poured all of his Polish heart into a new duty: helping raise money for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Penn’s Landing. And he would spend the rest of his days honoring a nephew who came back from Vietnam but died by suicide.

Remembering came hard.

The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War started in earnest after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and ended amid the scandal of Watergate.

The war was wildly unpopular and culturally divisive.

Scores of returning veterans believed they had traded one hostile environment for another.

And Kwasiborski became a caretaker for his nephew Anthony, aka “Sonny,” after he wrapped up his second Army tour.

The family believes that the atrocities Sonny experienced, coupled with overexposure to Agent Orange, rewired his brain. And it led Sonny to take his own life in August 1982.

“Dad never got over that,” Kwasiborski’s daughter, Diane Dempsey, said by phone recently. “Losing his nephew that way took a piece of him.”

The first national Vietnam memorial didn’t debut in Washington until November 1982.

By then Philly’s veterans wanted their own, but their preferred design would ultimately cost $600,000 (or more than $1.7 million today), and they’d see little governmental assistance or corporate dollars.

A majority of the money would have to be raised with great effort, and in small amounts.

Boxes piled up in the living room of Kwasiborski’s 1,100-square-foot rowhouse on East Ontario Street near Edgemont.

A banner hung across the open porch and below it, a sign listed the price for each piece of Vietnam paraphernalia: T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, key chains, flag sets.

He told potential customers that if the lights were on, “bang on the door.”

Kwasiborski single-handedly brought in more than $100,000 (nearly $300,000 today). He raised more money than any other individual.

The Philly Vietnam Veterans Memorial debuted on Oct. 26, 1987. The total count now sits at 648 names engraved into its polished Minnesota granite.

A Daily News reporter interviewed Kwasiborski about his fundraising efforts, and asked about Sonny.

“When all this is done,” Kwasiborski said softly, “I’m going to go to the grave and say, ‘Well kid, I did it.’”