BAKERSFIELD. CALIF, (KERO) — An intimate gathering at the Portrait of a Warrior Gallery pays tribute to the 81,198 service members still missing in action.
- National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
- Remembering former POWs and the 81,198 still missing.
- Intimate gathering at the Portrait of a Warrior Gallery.
- Importance of registering DNA profiles to aid in recovery.
- Community's duty to remember POWs and MIAs.
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Broadcast transcript:
Never forgotten... People gather each year to remember our service members who still haven't come home. September 20th was officially proclaimed as "POW MIA Recognition day" to honor those missing and unaccounted for.
An intimate gathering at the Portrait of a Warrior Gallery, to call attention to a staggering statistic, nearly 81,200 service members.
Commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Califronia, Deborah Johnson, says,
"We still have members in our own community that were held as prisoners of war. It is up to us to remember and honor their sacrifices. If we do not, this will get lost in history."
Wayne Wright's brother Allen, served in the Korean War, enlisting at the age of 22. Wayne was only 11 years old.
He said Allen deployed in September of 1950, and it was just three months later when he went missing, on December 2nd, 1950.
"But he was on a convoy cause he was wounded and the Chinese shot up the wounded trucks every mile and nobody knows where those trucks went down." Wayne said.
Wayne tells me it didn't just affect him but his mother too "I can remember my mother, she went to pieces. I guess I can remember that more than anything is how it affected her." He said.
Deborah tells me it's important for family members of POWs to register their DNA profile in the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. "We're working really hard to recover them." She said.
Deborah tells me that it's our job and duty as a community to remember these POWs and MIAs.
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