The local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1165 will honor American prisoners of war (POW) and those who did not come home from serving in the military (MIA) tomorrow, September 18.
There will be an Avenue of Flags to commemorate the sacrifice of service members to their country, but there will be no ceremony, only individual remembrances.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day was established in 1979 through a proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter, according to the U.S. Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
To learn more: https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaa
Since then, each subsequent president has issued an annual proclamation commemorating the third Friday in September as National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
Deb Lust, spokesperson for the local VFW, said the group is facilitating an Avenue of Flags near the Fort Scott National Cemetery on East National tomorrow.
“Because of the heat index, we are shortening the number of flags installed, from Margrave Street to all the way in the cemetery,” Lust said. “Normally, it’s East National Avenue through the cemetery.”
At 7 a.m. tomorrow, the flags will be posted, and at 4 p.m. the flags will be recovered, she said.
The Fort Scott Community College Softball Team and a group of youth from Kansas Renewal Institute will help the VFW with the flags.
“This is honoring all those who are POWs as well as those who were never recovered, those Missing In Action,” she said.
These are U.S. service members and civilians missing from past wars/conflicts.
“The Department of Defense has an agency that looks at archeological sites where there have been known battles or planes that went down in different locations in collaboration with the countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, just to name a few. They help families get some closure,” she said.
To her knowledge there has been only one POW in Bourbon County in recent memory, Jake Underwood. Underwood served in World War II.
Underwood, who was well known in the Bourbon County community, was captured during the Battle of Bulge in WWII and was a prisoner of war from December 1944 to April 1945.
To learn more: https://www.indianamilitary.org/106ID/Diaries/Stalag%20IX-B%20Bad%20Orb/Underwood-Jake-590A-9B/Underwood-Jake-590A-9B.pdf
“There may have been others,” she said. “We don’t know.”
