‘Forgotten Four’ remembered: New memorial to honor Vietnam War veterans left off national wall

By Rob McCartney

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    PAPILLION, Nebraska (KETV) — Fifty-five years after they gave their lives while serving their country, the names of four Nebraska sailors are going up on a Vietnam Wall.

It’s not the internationally known Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C.

It’s a wall that is part of a new Vietnam War Memorial that is being unveiled in Papillion, Nebraska.

This smaller wall holds the names of all 400-Nebraskans who died during the Vietnam war. Until now, only 396 of the Nebraskans had their names on a Memorial Wall.

The extra four are:

Gary Sage

Greg Sage

Kelly Jo Sage

Garry Hodgson

Hodgson had a Beatrice, Nebraska address, but was also known to have lived in Oregon.

The Sage’s are brothers whose parents gave them permission to serve on the same ship. They grew up in the small north-central Nebraska community of Niobrara.

That’s where every June 3rd, a small group of people gathers to remember the Sages, Hodgson, and the 70-other sailors who died on one fateful night, June 3, 1969.

They were serving on the USS Frank E. Evans, providing artillery and other support to U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam.

The Evans had to go to the Philippines to restock supplies and to re-arm. But when they were returning to Vietnam, they received orders to take part in Operation Sea Spirit in the South China Sea.

That was a military training exercise with more than 40-other ships from United States’ allies.

According to the official US Naval investigation, during that exercise, and during a time when the ships were operating in ‘darkened’ conditions, meaning their lights were off, the Evans mistakenly turned directly into the path of the HMAS Melbourne.

The Melbourne was an Australian aircraft carrier while towered over the small USS Evans.

The Melbourne sliced the Evans in half.

199-sailors survived.

74-sailors drowned.

Among them, the three Sage brothers.

A young Linda Vaa was married to 21-year-old Greg.

“I met him at a Bloomfield fair, oh my gosh, clear back in about 1965,” Linda said.

She remembered how excited Greg was to join his brother.

“His older brother, Gary, enlisted into the Navy and he wrote back with such wonderful stories and Greg said, “Do you mind if I go join the Navy?”

Linda remembered how excited Greg was to serve his country.

“I said, “Honey, I’d be proud of you.”

Then the collision happened, and Greg, the father of their newborn son, was gone.

She doesn’t understand why her first husband’s name isn’t on the Wall in D.C.

“Why they won’t put it on the wall? All I ask is a half an inch for 74 young men,” Linda asked.

Here is the government’s explanation:

The Evans sank in the South China Sea, too far outside of what the United States Department of Defense designated as the Official Combat Zone for the Vietnam War.

According to the DOD, to have a name on the wall the person must have died within the defined combat zone of Vietnam or while on a combat or combat support mission, going to or from that defined combat zone.

The DOD has made exceptions in the past and has added some names over the years, but so far, none of the 74-sailors of the USS Frank E. Evans has been added.

More than 50-years later their names are going on a Vietnam War memorial wall.

Helping make that happen is Johnson Granite in Kansas City, Missouri.

The company is nationally known for their memorials and monuments and they have been recruited to create part of a new Nebraska Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

They are making a wall that includes the names of Nebraska’s 400-Vietnam fatalities.

A lot of the granite that is being used is domestic, from quarries in South Dakota and Vermont, but Tripp Johnson said not all of it is.

“These big, black tablets we don’t have a black quarry here in the United States, so we go to India,” and Johnson said part of the process includes blasting the names with a zirconium oxide abrasive.

Johnson expects it to last a very long time and said his company is honored to be part of the memorial.

“It’s a very long-lasting product and you feel like you’ve given something,” he said, “Now some of these people gave everything, so it’s a humble feeling that we just participate in telling a story.” While the work was going on in Kansas City, site preparation was underway in Papillion.

It has been a multi-year battle.

They’ve had to fight funding, supply chain issues and the weather.

Those who are helping make the new memorial a reality said it is a battle that needed to be fought.

“The fact that we got here, and they didn’t, it means we need to honor them. We need to take care of the memories for their families and tell their stories and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Those are the thoughts of George Abbott.

He is a Navy veteran who actually served on a destroyer like the USS Evans and at the same time the Evans was in Vietnam.

“I was in the Navy and I was on the gunline and we were a sister ship, basically. We were DD759 and they were DD754,” Abbott said.

Now he is serving on the board of the Nebraska Vietnam Veteran Memorial.

The site includes a restored ‘Huey” UH-1 helicopter that flew more than 3,000 hours in Vietnam.

There are interactive tiles telling the stories of veterans

There are places to reflect upon the war and there is the new wall.

Abbott said adding the names of the Sage brothers and Garry Hodgson is the right thing to do.

“I think somebody needs to get their head out of the proverbial, get it done because they spent a lot of time on the gunline and what they call Yankee Station which is where the destroyers went up and worked for the aircraft carriers,” Abbott said “So, you know in my opinion, they certainly qualified for being on the Wall, but I’m not the guy to make that decision.”

Meanwhile, at the June 3, 2023 memorial in Niobrara, Linda Vaa and her son received an “Honor and Remember” flag as their fallen sailors were honored with a rifle volley and the playing of “Taps”.

Still, people like Linda Vaa who are still living with the loss, are left wondering why the names of their loved ones can’t be on the famous wall in D.C.

“I want my son to go see it, my granddaughter to go see their family’s names on the wall,” Linda said.

Until that happens, they hope Nebraska’s Wall will give them some solace, knowing that those lost are not forgotten.

“When you when you forget the boys, when you forget their names, then they’re dead. But when they’re always remembered and they’re remembered with such good everybody is so proud to know ’em,” Linda said.

Click Nebraska Vietnam War Memorial for more information about the memorial located in Papillion, Nebraska.

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