National POW/MIA Recognition Day was Friday, Sept. 16. Naval Aviation Museum Foundation CEO RADM Kyle Cozad, USN (ret), discusses the special way the foundation is honoring those missing, Prisoners of War, and those that paid the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam.
“Because the spring of next year marks the 50th anniversary of Operation Homecoming, which was the repatriation of nearly 600 prisoners of war who returned home from honor from North Korea, after many, many years of inhumane treatment and physical torture at the hands of the enemy, we really want to put something together that, number one, allows us to raise funds for a great cause, but also gives each one of the folks who donate something as a keepsake.”
Donors of $25 or more will received a serialized challenge coin commemorating the anniversary.
The foundation has partnered with the American Heritage Museum to creating a new exhibit to honor Operation Homecoming’s 50th anniversary.
“It’s raising the funds to be able to take those stories and preserve them for your kids, for my kids, for our grandkids into the future so people never forget,” said Cozad. “I had an opportunity to sit down with Commander Everett Alvarez, who was the Navy’s very first prisoner of war shot down. He spent nearly eight and a half years in captivity. And during our time together, just getting to know him, the toughness, the resiliency, and then the success these guys had when they got back, when they were repatriated, it’s just an amazing story.”
He added, “We want to make sure that we save those stories in some sort of recorded fashion so that everybody has an opportunity to sit and listen and learn.”
