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Headline: The Forgotten Sacrifice: Why Three Brothers Who Died in the Vietnam War Are Missing from the Memorial Wall
Behind one of the most tragic stories of the Vietnam War lies a lingering bureaucratic injustice that a grieving family has been fighting to correct for over half a century.
In the late 1960s, three brothers from Niobrara, Nebraska—Gregory, Gary, and Kelly Jo Sage—all decided to serve their country by joining the United States Navy. Following in the footsteps of their father, a World War II veteran, the brothers requested to be stationed together. They eventually stepped aboard the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans, bringing their tight-knit family bond into the theater of war.
But on June 3, 1969, their shared journey came to a sudden, catastrophic end.
A Fatal Collision in the Dark
While participating in a joint allied training exercise named “Sea Spirit” in the South China Sea, the USS Frank E. Evans crossed paths with the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne. In the darkness of the early morning hours, a series of tragic navigational misunderstandings occurred.
The massive Australian carrier rammed into the American destroyer, slicing the USS Evans completely in half. The forward section of the ship sank in less than three minutes, taking 74 American sailors down with it into the deep water. Among those lost were all three of the Sage brothers.
The tragedy devastated their hometown and shattered their family, drawing painful parallels to the famous Sullivan brothers who perished together during World War II.