BILL NUMBER: AJR 33 INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Holden JANUARY 30, 2014 Relative to veterans. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AJR 33, as introduced, Holden. Military and veterans. This measure would urge the United States Department of Defense to include the names of the 74 fallen sailors of the Destroyer U.S.S. Frank E. Evans (DD 754) on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Fiscal committee: no. WHEREAS, On March 29, 1969, the officers and men of the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans (DD 754) departed Long Beach, California for the western Pacific Ocean to carry out the operational orders of their Commander in Chief during a time of war with North Vietnam; and WHEREAS, On June 3, 1969, the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans (DD 754), while on an allied naval exercise during the Vietnam War, collided with the Australian aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne (R 21) in the South China Sea, near the coast of Vietnam; and WHEREAS, The collision severed the ship into two sections, with the forward section sinking in less than three minutes, taking the lives of 74 American sailors; and WHEREAS, Members of the United States Armed Forces who died during the Vietnam War have been memorialized by placing their names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., as long as they died within the combat zone; and WHEREAS, The United States Department of Defense maintains that the men who died as a result of the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans (DD 754) do not meet the criteria for inclusion on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because the accident occurred outside the combat zone, and continues to deny the placement of the names of the lost 74 sailors on the memorial; and WHEREAS, The Vietnam War combat zone boundaries, which were ill defined and were changed from time to time, should not be applied to exclude the names of the lost sailors from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; and WHEREAS, Other members of the United States Armed Forces who died outside the designated Vietnam War combat zone have had their names placed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; now, therefore be it Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, jointly, That the names of the 74 sailors from the U.S.S. Frank E. Evans (DD 754) should be included on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and California fully supports an immediate favorable decision by the United States Department of Defense to make an exception to its criteria and include those names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; and be it further Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, and to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States.