POW/MIA

Today is POW/MIA Recognition Day, since 1989 designated for the third Friday of September. Coeur d'Alene's Roy Weaver, a WWII US Marine Corps combat vet and former prisoner of war (1942-45), is everything you'd expect as he heads into his ninth decade of life. I'm fortunate to know Roy through his longtime friendship with my late father and their involvement in the Pappy Boyington Detachment of the Marine Corps League. I stand in awe of what Roy endured and survived but also of his attitude and patriotism.

"Harboring bitterness or hatred throughout my life will only harm me. It will not hurt those who beat me. So keeping these hates within myself is a waste. It was war, and a clash of two diametric cultures." Roy Weaver

Vietnam was my generation's war and I remember wearing a POW/MIA bracelet for most of the early 1970s. For Roy and those brave men in uniform who were held prisioner and those from past wars and present who are missing in action, we need to remember their sacrifices, not just today but every day.
Bud Kirchoff of Coeur d'Alene is another WWII veteran and former POW. He was a prisioner during the Battan Death March. His story HERE.