On June 3, 1969, Steve Kraus was a 22-year-old signalman of the watch on board the USS Frank E. Evans in the South China Sea. It was 3:05 a.m. when he saw that the destroyer was on a collision course with an Australian aircraft carrier. He ran into the signal shop shouting that the ship was about to be hit.
“Three minutes later the forward section of our ship had sunk into the ocean, taking 74 of our sailors with it,” Kraus told the Washington Examiner. Nearly 50 years later, Kraus has another mission — to ensure that those 74 names are added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.
Pentagon red tape stating that the disaster occurred outside the official Vietnam combat zone means none of the names of the “Lost 74” appear on the Vietnam wall. The ship sank just over one hundred miles outside the official Vietnam War theater.
“These guys died in support of their country,” said Kraus. “We trained, we went over, we knew the purpose of this assignment was to participate in the Vietnam War, but now the Pentagon wants to discount it. Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, or in the water in this case, is ludicrous. These men deserve the ultimate recognition of being on that wall with their fellow servicemen.”
Kraus was one of the 199 survivors and today is the president of the USS Frank E. Evans Association. For nearly three decades, the group has battled with the Pentagon. As the 50th anniversary approaches this year, the idea is gaining support in Congress, with a liberal Democrat running for the White House and a pro-Trump Republican from the red state of North Dakota joining forces to lead the way.
Sens. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the bipartisan U.S.S. Frank E. Evans Act last week to add these 74 names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This move is still opposed by the Pentagon even though hundreds of names have been added to the wall since it was dedicated in 1982, but if it passes the House and Senate it will go to President Trump’s desk.
Cramer said: “The 74 sailors who perished on the USS Frank E. Evans did so while serving our country. Their sacrifice, and that of their families, is worth not only remembering, but also being forever memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. alongside those with whom they served.”
Gillibrand wants to reverse the Pentagon’s policy: “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial honors the extraordinary sacrifices made by our Vietnam War heroes, but there are still 74 names missing from the iconic black wall. It’s long-past time that we properly memorialize the brave American service members who lost their lives on the USS Frank E. Evans.”
When the memorial was dedicated in 1982 there were 57,939 names. By Memorial Day of 2017 that number increased to 58,318 names. President Ronald Reagan approved the addition of 68 names, most of them Marines who died in 1965 when their R&R flight back to Vietnam had crashed in Hong Kong. Reagan added another 110 names in 1986, most of which were added as a result of the geographic area of the Vietnam combat zone being expanded.
Kraus admits “the mission took us just outside the defined combat zone” but argues “at any particular time we might be called back to Vietnam for gunfire support.” He contends that the sailors who died were only there because of the mission supporting the war effort in Vietnam and that they performed combat missions off the coast of Vietnam.
Despite the failure of previous efforts, Kraus is more optimistic about the latest legislative push: “I think each time we move a little bit closer. And we’ve gotten a lot smarter about what to expect, and so we are proactive. So I’m feeling more encouraged than before. We feel like we’ve been pushing toward the goal line for a few years. And having members of the Senate behind it is a big step.”
