Base commemorates POW/MIA Day

  • Published
  • By Deborah Silliman Wolfe
  • Thunderbolt staff writer
LUKE AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  More than 200 Luke Air Force Base Airmen, local veterans and community members remembered those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces and are missing in action or were prisoners of war during a ceremony Sept. 16 held in front of the wing headquarters building. 

Retired Brig. Gen. Ralph Browning, former 58th Fighter Wing commander, Luke AFB and former POW, was the guest speaker. 

"We gather here today to remind ourselves of those who have sacrificed all or part of their lives on behalf of the freedoms we all enjoy," the general said. "Today we remind ourselves that there are those Americans who still do not know the fate of their fathers, sons, spouses or comrades. 

"Obviously our current focus is on Iraq and Afghanistan where there are three Americans who are listed as missing. But let me remind you that we still wrestle with the fate of American fighting men." 

According to General Browning, there are 1,800 servicemembers who are still MIA from the Vietnam War, more than 8,000 from the Korean conflict and 7,800 from World War II. 

"All of those still remain unaccounted for," he said. "A much greater number have returned having survived their particular POW experience with varying degrees of success. We pause to affirm an essential ingredient of our heritage, by remembering those of our profession who gave and their families who continue to give of themselves for the sake of freedom." 

After General Browning's comments and a flyover of a missing man formation, Brig. Gen. Kurt Neubauer, 56th Fighter Wing commander, presented the general with a picture of a wing flag ship inscribed with words of thanks for his support of the men and women of the 56th Fighter Wing. 

After the ceremony, attendees were invited to stay for a reception in the headquarters building. 

Sun City resident Stan Angleton, a former POW, attended the ceremony. Mr. Angleton, who served with the Army-Air Corps during WWII, was a B-24 bomber engineer and was shot down on his twenty-fifth mission Dec. 28, 1942. 

"There were 19 airplanes on the mission, and only two got back to base," he said. "Seventeen planes were shot down and some of us ended up in the same prison camp." 

"I was held for 16-and-a-half months, and then I escaped two months before the war ended," he said. "I think it is very nice that the base puts on this ceremony every year."