Published: September 19, 2008 08:31 am      

Fort Ashby VFW service recognizing POWs, MIAs

Public welcome at tonight’s event

CUMBERLAND — A granite obelisk in Brooklyn marks the mass grave of the first Americans to be held prisoners of war — 11,500 men who died on British prison ships during the Revolutionary War.

Countless other Americans — men and women both — have been held prisoner during wartime since then, and it is estimated that at least 1 million others remain missing in action.

To those who remember them, it doesn’t matter who they were, or when or where they served.

All of them will be honored during a POW/MIA Recognition Day Round Table Memorial Service today at 7 p.m. at the Fort Ashby, W.Va., Veterans of Foreign Wars post. (Going south on state Route 28 from Cumberland, turn right just after crossing the Patterson Creek Bridge.)

The public will be welcome, said Bob Peck, coordinator of the event on behalf of Cumberland Chapter 172, Vietnam Veterans of America.

“Many people, and all of our veterans, know someone who was a prisoner or is still missing,” said Peck. “No war is really over until everyone comes back from it.”

Peck said the remains of three sailors from the USS Oklahoma were recently identified and returned to their families. The battleship was sunk during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been gone,” Peck said. “This brings closure to the families. They’re able to say, ‘Thank you, Lord. Now I know.’ ”

Peck said Americans tend to forget about these men and women, “but we don’t want them to be forgotten. That’s why the Vietnam Veterans of America came up with its slogan, ‘Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.’ ”

According to the Pentagon, there are 78,000 MIAs from World War II, 8,100 from the Korean War and more than 1,700 from the Vietnam War.

Peck said the VVA chapter’s museum has one of the jackets that North Vietnam issued to American POWs who were released after hostilities ceased.

“They put our people in brand-new jackets and pants and shiny new shoes so they would look good when they came home,” Peck said. “The truth is that usually, they wore what they were captured in until it just fell off them.”

Americans taken prisoner when North Korea captured the USS Pueblo in 1968 also were cleaned up and dressed well for a group picture that was supposed to show how well they were being treated.

However, many of them surreptitiously made an obscene gesture as a means of revealing the truth about their captivity. It was a gesture of defiance that resulted in even harsher treatment, and it may have ruined their chances for release. USS Pueblo remains moored to a dock in North Korea.

“Being a POW has to be a terrible thing,” said Peck. “They’re going to come back with such terrible trauma that will follow them the rest of their lives.

“It is imperative that we keep this day alive and let people know the significance of it, especially the school kids who are coming up. Young folks have to know what’s going on,” he said.

The round table memorial service features a ceremonial table that honors MIAs and POWs from the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard.

It is set with one empty chair, symbolizing the frailty of one prisoner against his oppressors.

A white tablecloth represents the purity of the POW/MIAs’ intention to answer their country’s call to arms.

A vase contains a single red rose for the blood they shed and the families and loved ones who’ve kept the faith. A candle is reminiscent of the light of hope.

A single place setting contains a shaker of salt symbolic of the families’ tears, a lemon slice that represents the bitterness of the lost ones’ fate, and a drinking glass that’s inverted because those who are absent cannot join the toast.