04 Jan 2003 The photo and following article is taken from The Philadelphia Daily News, special supplement entitled 'SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY,' October 26, 1987. The special supplement was issued in conjunction with the dedication of the Philadelphia Viet Nam Memorial. "Marty" Brown was a lovable and caring person, family and friends recall. He often helped elderly neighbors carry groceries home and shoveled their sidewalks in winter. Brown was a Boy Scout and a church usher, and as a youngster delivered newspapers. He was a quarterback on West Philadelphia High School's varsity football team, leaving school to enlist in the Navy in February 1965. He loved the USS King, the first ship on which he had ever sailed, and was happy to be reassigned to the guided missle frigate when his sea tour of Viet Nam began in December 1967. The 23-year-old boiler technician third class sent a Mother's Day orchid home shortly before he died in an explosion aboard the King on May 23, 1969. He was survived by his mother and sister. From a native Philadelphian and Marine, Jim McIlhenney christianamacks@comcast.net

A note from The Virtual Wall Four Boilermen died, and fifteen other crewmen were injured, during an engineering casualty and subsequent fire in the Tonkin Gulf off Vietnam at 2152 hours, Friday, 23 May 1969. The dead were BT2 Kenneth W. Grubb, Skamania, WA BT2 Gene L. Ware, Carnesville, GA BT3 Martin Brown, Philadelphia, PA BT3 Joseph D. Fischer, Zeeland, ND They are remembered by their shipmates on the USS KING web site.

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