It was 1969. War and protest rattled the nation while the troops marched on. The warships set sail. For coming-of-age American boys, death seemed one hill away. By then, nearly 300 of them were coming home in boxes each week. They were young men caught in a war machine, one of chance, circumstance, and misfortune. In a tragedy of just the same, lost in the turmoil of what would become America’s most unpopular war, lies a story buried 1,100 fathoms deep in the blue waters off Vietnam. In the middle of a dark night off the coast of Vietnam on June 3, 1969, the USS Frank E. Evans is rammed by a ship ten times her size, sending her forward half to the bottom of the South China Sea and into oblivion. Seventy-four Americans are killed in this mysterious collision. Three brothers from a small town in Nebraska are gone, as is the son of a chief who barely survived. Only one body is ever found. The truth is confined to a footnote of the Vietnam War. Buried in obscurity even today, as the 74 names of those killed are not on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. In American Boys, journalist Louise Esola has uncovered and assembled a powerful rebuttal, putting the ship and her men in the time and place that was Vietnam. Groundbreaking and astonishing in scope and intimate details, American Boys is a story of heartbreak and perseverance. It’s the story of a shattering injustice, of love and healing, and of a great generation of those who fought and lost yet vowed to never forget, though their nation has.
