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Re: Plight of POWs, MIAs Now Recognized

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: September 19, 2003

"Plight of POWs, MIAs recognized

By DAVID RILEY driley@kentuckynewera.com

John Brame sees the ultimate irony of warfare in the plight of America's former prisoners of war.

"Can you imagine fighting somewhere and losing the very thing you're fighting for," he asked the crowd assembled for Friday's National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

Brame, himself an Army veteran with duty in Vietnam and commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1913 here, was keynote speaker for the annual observance that honors America's prisoners of war and those missing in action from the nation's past wars.

The ceremony was conducted at the VFW post headquarters on VFW Lane off Skyline Drive.

Brame praised government efforts to bring back the remains of those missing in action from past wars but expressed veterans' recurring dissatisfaction with the pace of locating and repatriating the remains.

"We need to find these brave souls and bring them back," he stressed. "We need to get more people involved and more teams to bring these people home."

He expressed his personal skepticism that any Americans from past wars remain held as prisoners, given the harsh conditions under which they were held and the growing number of years since those conflicts.

In concluding the service, Brame introduced five former servicemen from Hopkins-ville who had endured enemy captivity during World War II. He acknowledged the modesty with which they accepted the crowd's ap-plause but put that reaction into perspective.

"There was a time in their lives when they would have loved to attend a ceremony like this and be cheered," he said.

Those recognized were:

n Bill Cramer, an airman with the 8th Air Force, who was shot down during the Battle of the Bulge and held as a prisoner in Belgium.

n Charles Hill, a veteran of the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division who was incarcerated in Germany.

n J.D. Mabry, a member of the 106th Infantry Division who was held in Germany and Poland.

n Roy Robertson, who as a member of the 36th Infantry Division,was captured and held as a prisoner in Munich, Germany.

n Francis Swain, a member of the 356th Field Artillery Battalion who was captured and held in Germany.

National POW/MIA Re-cognition Day has its origins in 1979 but had a fitful evolution until its observance was formalized in 1995. In the mid-1980's, the American Ex-POWs organization express-ed its desire to see the date established as April 9, the date during World War II when the largest number of Americans were captured.

The National League of Families proposed a date in September, usually the third Friday, not associated with any particular war and not in conjunction with any organization's national convention.

The day recognizes all returned POWs and all Americans still missing and unaccounted for from all wars.

David Riley can be reached by phone at 887-3233 or by email at driley@kentuckynewera.com.

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