Recce Town honors POWs
By Airman 1st Class Tristan D. Viglianco, 9th Reconnaissance Wing Public Affairs
/ Published September 24, 2018
BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif -- The 9th Reconnaissance Wing held a 24-hour vigil run and a remembrance ceremony in honor of POW/MIA Recognition Day, Sept. 21, 2018, here.
National POW/MIA Day is an annual observance held on the third Friday of September and is meant to recognize the nation’s prisoners of war and the service members who are still missing in action.
“There are still thousands of our fellow comrades who have yet to receive the embrace of loving arms,” said Lt. Col. Ahave Brown, 9th Maintenance Squadron deputy commander. “They stepped into the fray when our nation needed them most. In the course of serving their nation, they fell into the hands of captors. We say to them when we show up [at today’s ceremony] that we will find, we will fix and we will finish what you have started. To our POWs and MIAs we say thank you and we will forever keep the watch.”
Numerous former POWs and their families attended the ceremony and were presented with plaques as a token of appreciation for their enormous sacrifices.
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, more than 82,000 Americans remain missing from past wars.
“We are a nation that will spare no expense to bring home our own,” said Col. Spencer Thomas, 9th Reconnaissance Wing vice commander. “We are in the process right now of bringing home folks, and that will not stop until we find every last one of them.”