P.O.W.- M.I.A. Remembrance day will be Friday, September 17th. This is a day when all Americans should remember the thousands of soldiers who did not come home after the war, in which they served and died.
On a positive note, remains of our soldiers are being located and identified, finally giving their families some peace of mind and closure. On a website there is a list of soldiers, by name, when they were missing in action and when their remains were identified. To date, in 2010, there have been 8 soldiers found, going back to a U.S. Marine who was lost on September 15, 1918 and remains identified on March 2, 2010. The service men in this group were from WW1 to Vietnam.
Those found in 2009, totaled 39, many of these soldiers were in the Korean conflict, several from the Vietnam war, and three different groups of Air Force soldiers, lost when their planes were shot down during WW 2. The fact that 8 or 9 remains were found together reveals the persons responsible for finding and identifying these soldiers are doing a great service for our country and the families.
In 2008, remains were identified in February and August, three were from WW 1 and found in France, the other 15 were in a U.S Special Operations Squadron reconnaissance mission over southern Laos.
These soldiers are just the most recent to be identified, there has been much success through the past few years in gaining access to area's where it is thought our military was last seen or area they were known to be fighting in. There was a total of 64 Soldiers, Sailors and Air Force men in this group. We can only hope the searching continues, there is still a large number still missing in action and need to be found. Keep all of these people in your thoughts and prayers, we must be there to support them.
The Minonk VFW Ladies auxiliary will be honoring our POW-MIA veterans with a Remembrance program at their meeting on Monday, September 20th.
" A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to the United States of America for an amount ... up to and including my life ".... That is Honor and Patriotism !!