Fighting for recognition

Sailors killed in collision denied place on ‘The Wall’

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BROOKINGS – The United States Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans DD-754 was put out of action nearly 50 years ago, on June 3, 1969, and 74 of its sailors killed in a collision with an Australian aircraft carrier.

For the Evans’ survivors and the families of those men killed while the Vietnam War was being fought, there has been no final closure. But it may be coming.

At issue is the failure of the Department of Defense to add the names of those men to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial – “the Wall” – because of a technicality: the ship was not in the “combat zone.”

There had been promising predictions that the names would go on the Wall: A headline in the July 15, 2014, edition of The Los Angeles Times says, “3 Niobrara brothers’ names may soon be on the Wall at Vietnam Veterans Memorial.” But those hopes were dashed. It hasn’t happened.

A Fox News online headline on May 22, 2017, reads, “U.S. refuses to add sailors’ names to Vietnam Memorial.”

“It’s not going to happen,” said Linda Vaa, of Brookings, whose first husband, Petty Officer 3rd Class (radarman) Gregory Sage, 21, and his brothers, Petty Officer 2nd Class (boatswain mate) Gary Sage, 22, and Seaman Apprentice Kelly Sage, 19, were among the 74 men killed. “The names will not be on the Wall. Now they’re saying they’re going to build a museum in front of the Wall. And in that museum they’re going to give us a place for a big plaque to put the 74 names together.

“If we got it on the Wall, it would be two names here, two names there. They would not be together; and these boys were buried together. They need to be together.”

Widow with a 1-year-old son

The collision and the events preceding and following it have been well documented officially in documents produced by the United States Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Additionally, the events were extensively covered by the media.

Finally, reporter Louise Esola investigated and researched the Evans-Melbourne collision and tied it to other aspects of the United States Navy’s role in the Vietnam War. In 2014, she self-published “American Boys: The True Story of the Lost 74 of the Vietnam War.”

For her part, Vaa, married to Gregory Sage on July 1, 1967, and left widowed with a 1-year-old son, has her own recollections of the collision, its aftermath and its impact on the survivors, families of survivors, and especially the Sage family and other residents of small-town Niobrara, Neb.

She has a large loose-leaf binder about 3 inches thick and filled with photos, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia. Much of her collection focuses on her husband, her two brothers-in-law – the “three Niobrara brothers” – and her in-laws, the late Eunice and Ernest Sage.

Vaa remains a member of the USS Frank E. Evans Association, which has led the charge to have the 74 sailors properly honored, memorialized and recognized as having been participants in the Vietnam War. She regularly attends gatherings of the association.

18-wheeler hitting a Volkswagen

The end for the Evans came at about 3:15 in the morning while the ship was detached from its gunfire support Vietnam mission and assigned to a training exercise with the Royal Australian Navy.

In an apparent lack of awareness, confused communications, inexperienced junior officers and several misunderstandings of the unfolding situation – what might be described as the “fog of war” as attributed to General Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th Century Prussian military analyst – the Evans steamed in front of the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and was literally sliced in two.

Vaa compared the collision to “an 18-wheeler hitting a Volkswagen.” The forward section, the bow, sank in a matter of minutes, killing 73 men trapped inside; one sailor was later found floating in the water, bringing to 74 the number of men lost from a crew of about 275 men.

While the sailors who lost their lives were not per se directly involved in the Vietnam War at the time of the collision, their family members, survivors and the family members of survivors have noted that it was the Vietnam War that put the Evans and its crew in harm’s way.

Some recognition given

Regardless of what may come out by way of recognition at the national level, the lost 74 Evans sailors have not been forgotten.

Niobrara has its own Memorial Wall that pays tribute to the “Lost 74” with a roster of all their names. A separate memorial pays tribute to the Sage brothers. The dedication of the two memorials took place on Memorial Day 2016.

Additionally, the Sage brothers had been honored with the naming of Sage Hall on Naval Station, Treasure Island, in San Francisco Bay. “We were out there when it was dedicated,” said Vaa. “They had painted a big picture of the three boys and put it in a hallway.”

Then came base closure in 1997 and abandonment of the buildings there. The picture seems to have disappeared into an unknown government storage facility.

Vaa did note that there had been talk of additional recognition on a larger scale. She said Chuck Hagel, then a United States senator, “came to our 30th reunion. He said, ‘Yes, their names should be on the Wall.’ And then when he became Secretary of Defense (from 2013 to 2015), he pulled back the reins and said, ‘No, I can’t get them on there.’

“He had promised my mother-in-law (Eunice Sage) that he was going to try to get them on there. Then he said no. And then all of a sudden, he was gone.”

Life moves on

If there’s a best-case scenario for the lost 74 crew members, to Vaa it can be summed up in one word: Recognition.

“I’m going to put on line my view,” she said. “I’m going to say that this half wants to get it on the Wall; this half has realized that is impossible and said we would be satisfied to get it on the memorial. To me it’s all or none. That’s just my own heart. Lest we forget.”

Vaa would be satisfied with a memorial or monument in Washington, possibly in the above mentioned museum near the Wall, that would recognize all 74 Evans crewmembers lost in the collision and the role that the ship played in the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, she has moved on with her life.

About 1972 Vaa was living in Niobrara, but she didn’t like that the townspeople “were spoiling my son rotten. He couldn’t go anywhere that they wouldn’t give him candy, pop, everything that he wanted. I couldn’t handle that.”

So she decided to go to beauty school, “because the Navy had given me Greg’s GI Bill.” But the need to work to as late as 10 p.m. didn’t work out, because of child-care issues at that time of day.

So she attended barber school in Sioux Falls. It was a decision that changed her life in a big way and brought her to where she is today.

She was barbering in Sioux Falls when Spencer Vaa, a waterfowl biologist, came in and got a haircut. Linda visited with Spencer, an Army veteran who received the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered in Vietnam. He found out more about Linda, that she was a widow. He came back for a haircut – and asked her for a date. In May 1976 they married.

Today the Vaas live in Brookings. Spencer is retired. Linda continues to work as a barber. They have an adopted daughter, Sarah, 35. Linda and Greg’s son, Gregory “Allan” Sage, Jr., 49, has a daughter and lives and works in Sioux Falls.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.