Adding names of sailors opposed
After an effort to add the names of 74 sailors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial hit a roadblock in the Senate, supporters of inscribing the names of the men who died aboard the USS Frank E. Evans are continuing to press for their inclusion.
In a letter dated Monday, Memorial Day, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., called on Senate leaders to pass a bill that would add the names to the war memorial in Washington despite opposition from the Department of Defense and others.
Their objection, in part, is because the deaths of the men on the Navy destroyer in June 1969 occurred outside an official combat zone.
The letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnel land Minority Leader Charles Schumer, along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-alaska, and Sen. Joe
Manchin, D.-W.VA., chairman and ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources committee.
During a committee hearing earlier this month, Murkowski voiced opposition to the bill.
“We will find a way to honor these sailors, but at this juncture, there remain practical, legal and technical considerations that we have to resolve,” she said, calling it “unfortunate” that criteria set by the Department of Defense did not accommodate inclusion of the names on the memorial.
The debate over honoring the sailors who died when their ship struck an Australian aircraft carrier during a warfare exercise and sank 125 miles from the combat zone has been a yearslong saga.
Family and surviving crew members of the Frank E. Evans have fought to add their names to the memorial, arguing that the men who died on the ship — which provided naval gunfire support during the Vietnam War — deserve to be remembered alongside more than 58,000 U.S. servicemen who lost their lives in the war.
— Tribune News Service