Recognition Day honors our POWs, MIAs
By SHANNON CRABTREE newsdesk@leader-news.com

More than 90,000 American soldiers lie in unmarked graves somewhere - their final sacrifice wrapped in mystery, mud, prayers and families' long-held hopes.

But they are not forgotten.

"However long it takes, Whatever it takes us, Whatever the cost" - America's soldiers will be brought home is the motto and mission of those with the Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command teams and scientists working with those at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory.

Slowly, painstakingly, they are bringing the lost home.

One burial at a time.

The most recent is Pfc. Carl A. West, Marine Corps, of Amanda Park, Washington.

He was killed Dec. 8, 1950 near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea and buried in a temporary cemetery by fellow Marines. That ground was lost to North Korea later that month.

In 1954, as part of Operation Glory, 2,944 sets of remains were returned to the United States - his among them although his identity had become suspect. So along with 415 of his comrades in arms, West was buried as an unknown in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (The Punchbowl) in Hawaii.

In May 2006, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command exhumed remains from The Punchbowl believed to be those of West and reevaluated them.

On Oct. 4, he will officially come home.

West, at his family's request, will be buried Oct. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C.

There are still almost 1,800 Americans unaccounted from just the Vietnam War - 114 are from Texas, according to a Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office report updated this week.

Two of those men are from Wharton County.

Capt. Charles Manske of El Campo is believed to have been killed in action, but his remains have never been recovered.

The 28-year-old Air Force pilot's F-100 crashed May 24, 1969 in the waters off the Phu-Yen Province near Tuy-Hoa Air Base while returning from a combat mission.

The family held a memorial service for the young captain a few days later.

Brig. Gen. Robert W. Maloy wrote the Manske family saying that the flight officer from another aircraft reported the plane exploding on impact and seeing an oil slick on the water. But a parachute was never spotted and no emergency transponder was activated.

Charles Manske was a 1957 El Campo High School graduate. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1962 and then entered the Air Force.

The other is James Henry Calfee of New Gulf. The Air Force sergeant was on the ground in Laos on Nov. 3, 1968 when he is believed to have been killed in action.

His body has never been recovered. They and the more than 90,000 other soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen still missing (some since World War I fighting) were remembered Friday during National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

The search goes on.

In Korea, 5.7 million served, with 54,236 killed and 103,240 injured - 8,177 missing. Of those, 461 are Texas soldiers.

One is a young man from Markham who hasn't been seen since 1953.

Air Force 2nd Lt. Raymond Sylvester Krenek was in a T-33 on April 7, 1953 when it went down. He was declared dead May 12, 1953.

In World War II, 16 million served with 404,977 killed and 670,846 injured - 78,750 are missing.

In World War I, more than 4.7 million served in the U.S. Armed Forces with 116,516 killed and 204,002 injured. There are still 3,350 missing or unaccounted for.

They're still waiting to come home.