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Old 09-10-2019, 06:40 AM
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Boats Boats is offline
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Thumbs up Senators call for defense bill to include addition of 'Lost 74' sailors to Vietnam Me

Senators call for defense bill to include addition of 'Lost 74' sailors to Vietnam Memorial
By: Jerry Dunleavy - Washington Examiner - 9-10-19 - 08:53 AM
RE: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...etnam-memorial

A bipartisan group of senators called upon the Armed Services Committee to authorize the addition of the names of the “Lost 74” sailors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the National Defense Authorization Act.

The sailors drowned when their ship sank more than 100 miles outside the official Vietnam War theater in June 1969.

Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans Act earlier this year to add the 74 names to the iconic black wall in Washington, D.C., and a committee hearing was held in June. This move is opposed by the National Parks Service, which manages the memorials on the National Mall.

Now Cramer, Gillibrand, and six others are calling upon the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee to add the language in the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans Act to the defense spending bill as senators return this week to discuss the hundreds of billions of dollars in military priorities after the August recess.

“This year marks 50 years since we lost these 74 sailors. Honoring their service is already long overdue, but what better way to commemorate their sacrifice than to see their names added? Now is the time,” the senators wrote to their colleagues Tuesday.

Because the deaths occurred outside the official combat theater, their sailors' names haven’t been added to the wall. Their destroyer participated in numerous combat support tours during the Vietnam War and, following one, the ship was sent to the South China Sea to participate in a Southeast Asia Treaty Organization allied exercise, where a training accident in the middle of the night resulted in the ship being cut in half by the Australian HMAS Melbourne. Only one body was recovered.

The senators said on Tuesday that “just like the nearly 60,000 people who died in Vietnam, these 74 heroes left home to give their country their all, and they did not return.”

The National Park Service claims there isn't space on the wall for a large-scale addition of names or for additional names that could come as a result of the Department of Defense expanding what's considered the combat zone. Hundreds of names have been added since the wall was dedicated in 1982.

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It's about time. I'm contacting my Senator to tell him to give it the thumbs up and list these boys on the VN wall. I'm sure the Brother's on the wall will greet them as well for their service and sacrifice. Plus give their relatives the recognition for their Son's and Daughter's who lost their lives during this God awful war. I wish my Brother's name could be put on the Wall as he was there and later died from AO.

Boats
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Boats

O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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