A group of senators asked the secretary of defense to meet with them as part of their bipartisan effort to add the names of the “Lost 74” sailors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
The USS Frank E. Evans, a naval destroyer that had just completed a combat tour off Vietnam’s coast and was scheduled to return, sank during a training exercise in June 1969. Seventy-four sailors drowned, and only one body was recovered. For decades, survivors and families have fought to add the names of the perished sailors to the iconic granite wall in Washington, D.C. But the Pentagon opposes the effort since the incident occurred over 100 miles outside the designated Vietnam War theater.
But a dozen senators from both parties sent a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday asking to meet with him to end the Pentagon’s resistance.
“The Defense Department has a mixed, if not negative, record with regards to honoring the names of those who died in the sinking of the USS Frank E. Evans by adding them to the Vietnam Memorial Wall,” GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who helped lead the effort as a congressman and now as a freshman senator, told the Washington Examiner. “Bureaucrats and middlemen have stood in the way, offering excuses each time. We hope to personally convey the Lost 74’s case to Secretary Esper and gain his support.”
The letter to Esper was signed by six Republican senators — Cramer, Susan Collins of Maine, Steve Daines of Montana, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Michael Rounds of South Dakota, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. Six Democrats signed on as well: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Doug Jones of Alabama, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.
“We write to request a meeting with you to discuss adding the names of the 74 sailors lost aboard the USS Frank E. Evans on June 3, 1969 to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The legacy of these brave Americans, the ‘Lost 74,’ should no longer go unrecognized due to an arbitrary line on a map,” the group told Esper. “Last year marked 50 years since we lost these 74 sailors. Honoring the sacrifice of these 74 sailors alongside the nearly 60,000 other service members who died in Vietnam is long overdue.”
The destroyer participated in numerous Vietnam combat support tours, including during the Tet Offensive. Following one, the ship was sent to the South China Sea to participate in a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization exercise, where a nighttime training accident resulted in the ship being cut in half by the Australian HMAS Melbourne.
The USS Frank E. Evans Act, aiming to direct the Pentagon to add the names to the wall, received bipartisan support and passed the House last year as part of the National Defense Authorization Act but was dropped during conference negotiations. The Senate effort continues.
Last June, senators pressed the Interior Department’s National Park Service, which manages D.C.’s national monument, over its position, and its representative said they supported the Pentagon.
“We would defer this bill to the Department of Defense, who has determined that the names of those who perished on the USS Frank E. Evans do not meet the criteria for inclusion,” Deputy Director Daniel Smith said.
Smith claimed including the names “will be hard to accomplish the way the wall is currently constructed” and “would necessitate substantial modification, and possibly a wholesale replacement, of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.”
Smith also pointed to a previous statement by Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work.
“The EVANS was not operating in the defined combat zone of Vietnam at the time of the mishap,” the Pentagon leader wrote in 2016. “In conformance with these longstanding criteria for inclusion on The Wall, the Department has declined to grant the exception.”
The Pentagon and National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Additional names have been added to the wall before, including hundreds during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. When the memorial was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names. By Memorial Day 2017, that number increased to 58,318. A 2019 audit by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund found that due to duplications, miscounts, and other errors, the number should be 58,276 — not 58,318.
Steve Kraus, one of 199 survivors of the 1969 disaster, was a 22-year-old signalman then and today is president of the USS Frank E. Evans Association. For three decades, the group has battled the Pentagon.
“We are not giving up the fight to get the recognition the 74 sailors of the USS Frank E. Evans deserve,” Kraus told the Washington Examiner. “An arbitrary line drawn in the water for IRS purposes should not be the reason to exclude their names. They died in the Vietnam War. They made the ultimate sacrifice.”
