'Remember them'

EGLIN AFB — "Remember them."

That phrase, spoken in turn by members of the Eglin Air Force Base honor guard to the accompaniment of a single ring of a bell, punctuated Friday's local observance of National POW/MIA Recognition Day at the Air Force Armament Museum.

The cavernous interior of the museum was darkened except for one spotlight focused on a "POW/MIA Missing Man Table." The table was surrounded by five empty chairs representing the missing personnel from each of the U.S. military's five branches — the  Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard — for whom no accounting has been made.

"This is a time of remembrance, but also a time of healing," said retired Army Capt. Richard Adams, one of the speakers at the observance. During his speech, Adams called attention to one of the local POWs held during the Vietnam War, Ron Webb. Webb, an Air Force officer now living in Niceville, spent nearly six years as POW after his jet crashed.

Adams, who with Webb is part of a large informal group of local military retirees called the Crispy Warriors, called Webb "an amazing man."

Retired Army Col. Neil Van Ess of North Carolina, national commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, had been scheduled to speak but was kept away by the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. In his place, William Everett, a Baker man with the local chapter of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, spoke to the dozens of people gathered for the ceremony.

Everett called POWs and those missing in action "a special group of American heroes."

"On this day," Everett said, "the word 'remember' has so much more meaning than it usually does."

Emerging from the Armament Museum into a brightly sunlit morning, the crowd watched as the honor guard conducted a flag-folding ceremony and placed a wreath in the plaza outside the museum. As the flag was folded and "Taps" was played, three Eglin fighter jets flew low above the museum grounds in the "missing man" formation.

There was a note of hopefulness attached to this year's POW/MIA remembrance. As Everett noted, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the remains of two Army soldiers listed as missing during the Korean War had been identified.

The remains of Army Master Sgt. Charles H. McDaniel, 32, of Vernon, Indiana, and Army Pfc. William H. Jones, 19, of Nash County, North Carolina, were among the remains repatriated to the United States earlier this year from North Korea. They were identified by researchers with the federal Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) using dental X-rays and DNA samples.

Everett said during his speech that the Military Order of the Purple Heart will "urge Congress to continue to provide funding for the DPAA until all the work is done."