Dear Editor

Since the Revolutionary War, generations of Americans have beenwilling to make great sacrifices in order to win and preserve ournation’s freedom. Few Americans could appreciate that freedom morethan those who suffered capture and imprisonment during times ofwar.

On this day and everyday, America should pay particular homageand respect to the sacred memories of our prisoners of war andmissing in action, most of whom perhaps now have long since beeninterred in an unmarked grave in a forgotten far off corner of aforeign land buried in foreign soil.

They too had names to mark a grave site. They too had faces,loved ones, unfulfilled lives and dreams, but sacrificed thoselives and dreams for this nation and are deserving of ourremembrance and the honor of our highest regard.

They too deserve the respect of being returned home to the greenhilled cemeteries of America where their families can know where tofind them, a place where their next of kin, their father, mother,children, brothers and sisters can know where to bring theirflowers. The place to gather about the sacred remains of theirloved one and to honor them.

America is tasked with an awesome responsibility, to find andreturn to their homes our POWs and MIAs.

Thousands upon thousands of our servicemen and women from thenation’s long history of battles are still unaccounted for. Theyendured starvation, disease, and physical and psychologicaltorture, in addiction to separation from loved ones. Our nationmust never forget the great price these and other Americans paid sothat we might live in peace and freedom.

Today, each and every American should recognize the tremendousdebt we owe our former prisoners of war. Let us always strive to beworthy of their sacrifices, and let us always be thankful for theblessings of liberty they helped to secure for our country.

May our Lord Jesus Christ look kindly upon them until they arereturned home, to their America, to the land for which they havepaid the supreme sacrifice.

Luis Vargas

Brandon