Denver-area units hold POW/MIA Recognition Day vigil

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. J.C. Woodring
  • Air Reserve Personnel Center Public Affairs
DENVER (AFPN) --  To commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day, military and civilian employees gathered here Sept. 14 for a 24-hour vigil to remember people listed as prisoners of war or missing in action.

The annual ceremony opened with volunteers from the Air Reserve Personnel Center, Defense Finance and Accounting Service and 4th Manpower Requirements Squadron setting up a POW/MIA table.

Active-duty Airmen from a combined DFAS/ARPC honor guard placed service caps from all branches of the military onto the POW/MIA table.

Immediately following the ceremony, ARPC's Chief Master Sgt. Arthur Englebrecht began reading the names of more than 10,000 people missing or captured from the Cold War through current operations.

Throughout the night, pairs of people took 30-minute shifts reading the names, ranks, branches of service and the date they went missing.

"I joined the Air Force mainly because of 9/11," said Airman Daniel McMillian, an evaluations technician at ARPC who graduated basic training June 26. "This is a way for us to show respect to those who didn't make it home."

The vigil will end with a formal retreat ceremony of two military and one civilian formation and the retiring of the POW/MIA flag.

Since the annual vigil began in 2000, Chief Englebrecht said they are never short of volunteers to participate. He said that it was one way to show "our country will never forget."