News-Info-Alerts

Re: A Day of Recommitment

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: September 21, 2002

"POW/MIA Day is cause for solemn observance and recommitment

OUR OPINION

For many Americans, "service to their country" meant years spent in musty cells, it meant unspeakable torture and, for far too many, it meant a violent, though nearly anonymous, death.

These are the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whose fate in war led them to be prisoners of war or whose status after the smoke of battle cleared was listed simply as "missing in action."

Today, National POW/MIA Recognition Day, is set aside to honor those whose status we just don't know.

Department of Defense listings show no remaining Vietnam War MIAs from the Southern Pennyrile. The listings, though, still label five area soldiers as "missing in action" in the Korean War (Pvt. Bobby Davis, Sgt. Thomas Nunes, Sgt. Floyd Pryor and Sgt. Richard West from Christian County and Sgt. Leslie Guill Jr. from Caldwell County.)

Today, honor goes to these individuals, but sympathy, support and awkward thanks go to the families and descendents of these missing service members.

Is it plausible some could still be alive, some still held prisoner? Just when we thought it would be impossible in this day and age, North Korea this week announced that some of the 11 Japanese citizens who were kidnapped a dozen years ago – an incident the Koreans repeatedly have denied until now – remain alive.

The government has committed significant resources to searching for and recovering the remains of those declared missing in action, and for that we're grateful. Our commitment to "leaving no one behind" needs to be real – and we believe it is.

But there's not enough money in all the world's budgets or enough searchers with spades, trowels and metal detectors to comb all the battlefields in all the countries and the depths of all the oceans where we've sent our young men and women over the years.

How we would love to bring home all our lost loved ones and never have to observe another POW/MIA Recognition Day, but in the face of the grimly impossible, the next best thing is to render a salute and repeat our heartfelt recognition to them and their families.

And that we do today.

Copyright © 2000, Kentucky New Era"