An important part of Branson’s Veterans Homecoming Week is remembering those who served but whose families have never learned their loved one’s fate or whereabouts. The 2024 POW/MIA Service of Remembrance, honoring those soldiers and their families, was held on Friday, November 8, at the Welcome Center of the College of the Ozarks campus.
P.O.W. Network Chairman Mary Schantag welcomed those gathered and introduced Brooke Burger, who sang the National Anthem. The Pledge of Allegiance and invocation were led by P.O.W. Network board member Terri Howard.
As the featured presentation for this year’s remembrance service, Mary Schantag read from a historic treasure she recently received from the family of a World War II POW, a diary of the soldier’s journey to freedom following liberation when the war ended. After months of near starvation, many of the soldier’s diary entries mentioned food—such as beef and plenty of tea at the group’s first stop, a British camp where the soldiers also enjoyed the simple pleasure of a shower, along with de-lousing treatment and a clean, albeit British, uniform.
Entries during the train ride to U.S. headquarters and a new American G.I. uniform, included such comments as “If only we could get word from home,” and “I’m looking forward to spending the next 40 years loving my family.” Good meals were a frequent refrain, unfortunately alongside descriptions of digestive discomfort as the body regained the ability to digest real food, something most of us take for granted. There were also frequent references to God, and thankfulness for the war’s end. Hardly a dry eye remained among attendees as the diary entries closed with “Sure glad I ain’t in Germany,” and “There’s always hope.”
Schantag then emphasized the importance of continuing to remember the missing and to speak their names aloud. Attendees with family or friends who died as a POW or still listed MIA took turns sharing names, as Network volunteer Jeanne Cooper tolled the bell in recognition of each.
P.O.W. Network has also received what Schantag called “boxes of history,” including POW bracelets, cards and buttons. Attendees were encouraged to take, wear and pray over these items as per their intended use, keeping memories alive as P.O.W. Network continues working year-round to help families get the answers they need. A postcard from the box featured on the service program was from a mailing campaign in the early 1970s asking North Vietnamese officials to have mercy on families such as that of Col. Howard Smith, MIA September, 1968.
The remembrance service closed with tolling of the bell symbolizing POW/MIA from each conflict since World War I, as well as those lost outside of combat duty, followed by Taps played by Chris Conant. Families are grateful to P.O.W. Network for the work they do to research their missing, as well as identifying cases of stolen valor and calling them to justice cases, and working to make sure the nation and governmental agencies do not forget.
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