The Pentagon rejected requests by family members and survivors to add the names of 74 U.S. soldiers killed in a 1969 ship collision to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, Fox News reports.
The USS Frank E. Evans shipwreck occurred outside the Vietnam combat zone when the ship turned into the path of an Australian aircraft carrier and was split in half, according to Pentagon officials.
The sailors "do not meet the established criteria for the inscription of their names on the wall," Pentagon spokeswoman Navy Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson said. "The deputy secretary of defense extensively reviewed information and records to make an informed decision."
But survivors and relatives said the ship's crew should be added because they had supported ground operations in Vietnam weeks earlier and would have been sent back after the exercise.
"I'm not happy with the whole thing," said 92-year-old WWII and Vietnam veteran Lawrence Reilly Sr. "It's a bad deal."
Reilly Sr. is an Evans survivor whose 20-year-old son, Lawrence, was killed.
The Pentagon instead has offered to pay tribute to the soldiers by listing their names on a memorial plaque and placing it inside the proposed education center set to be built by the wall.
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