News-Info-Alerts

Re: Gone But Not Forgotten

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: May 27, 2002

"Soldiers unaccounted for are remembered in candlelight ceremony

BY DOUG ZELLMER

OF THE NORTHWESTERN

They came to remember prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action during a candlelight remembrance ceremony at the village green.

A common theme at the gathering was our country and its citizens should never forget the fighting men and women who got the call to serve their country, but whose whereabouts remain unknown.

"I believe we have some missing from all of our wars. We shouldn't rest until we know what happened to all of our POWs and MIAs," said Ripon resident Howard Nault, a veteran of World War II. "Every effort should be made to find out what happened to them so there is a closure to the families. They deserve it and our country owes it to them."

Numbers vary, but an estimated 5,800 U.S soldiers are unaccounted for in the Vietnam War.

Efforts will not cease to find soldiers whose whereabouts are unknown, said Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, a guest speaker at the gathering organized by the Wisconsin chapter of Rolling Thunder, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of POW and MIA issues.

Petri said Congress recently passed two important measures to increase intelligence on POW and MIA whereabouts and that the Department of Defense hire more employees working in those areas.

"We want to do all we can to find our missing soldiers in past wars. The work is slow, but we are to continue the search unabated," he said.

Petri said POW-MIA issues are deeply personal matters to the families of those soldiers.

"They are the loved ones, who are left behind and live with questions and uncertainty for years," he said. "It's a cruel shadow that follows them everyday."

Artie Muller, president of the National Rolling Thunder, said he believes there are still soldiers alive in countries where the United States fought. For example, he said that during the past five years, 23 South Korean soldiers have escaped slave labor camps in North Korea.

Muller said that is an indication soldiers from America are probably alive from the Korean War and also the Vietnam War.

"Our government has to put pressure on those countries that could be holding our soldiers," he said. "Nobody has demanded to foreign countries "where are our brothers?"

Doug Zellmer: (920) 426-6667 or dzellmer@smgpo.gannett.com.
© Copyright 2001, The Northwestern. "