BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Greenlawn Funeral Home and Memorial Park will be holding a ceremony in honor of POW/MIA Recognition Day on Friday, September 16th.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day is September 16th. The day is dedicated to military members who are unaccounted for. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, almost 82,000 of those that served remain unaccounted for, dating back to World War II. Over 100 of those people are from Kern County.
To honor those that served and are unaccounted for, Greenlawn Funeral Home will hold the largest POW/MIA Recognition Day tribute in the nation. The event will include Ed Gaede of the Kern County WWII Veterans Memorial as he reads the individual names of those unaccounted for in Kern County. The event will also feature Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh, the P61 Night Fighter Squadron Group, the American Filipino Historical Society, the Olive Drab Drivers, and the Bakersfield Young Marines.
“This is a time in which we will honor our nation's heroes who knew the hostility of war and the anguish of captivity," said James LaMar, President of Greenlawn. "We pause and, through the commemoration of POW/MIA day, honor all of America's patriots who sacrificed their freedom and their lives for their country. Our late President John F. Kennedy may have said it best: 'A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.”
All Kern County citizens are invited to attend the observance ceremony. The event will take place at Greenlawn Memorial Park on Panama Lane at 6 p.m. For more information, contact Jim La Mar of Greenlawn at 661-834-8820.
