U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is asking Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter to add the names of 74 American sailors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
The New York Democrat on Thursday called on the Pentagon chief to have the names enshrined on the Washington, D.C., memorial to the war's dead. The sailors were aboard the USS Frank E. Evans when the destroyer was split in half after being broadsided by an Australian aircraft carrier during a 1969 training exercise in the South China Sea.
Four New York natives were among the dead.
The names of the Evans sailors were left off the memorial because the accident occurred outside the Vietnam combat zone. Schumer says an exception should be made for the Evans 74, since the ship had provided combat fire support in Vietnamese waters just days before the accident.
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