Judi Boyer Bouchard
(Sister of SFC Alan L. Boyer- MIA in Laos March 28, 1968; remains interred
Arlington National Cemetery 2016)
Sept. 17, 2021 is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. It is a day to pause to remember and honor the commitments and sacrifices made by our nation’s POWs and those who remain Missing in Action from all wars.
Over 83,000 soldiers are still unaccounted for from past wars. And still their families wait. There are still 1,584 MIAs from the Vietnam War, 38 of those are from North Carolina. Official U.S. intelligence indicates that Americans known to have been alive or in captivity in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were not returned at the end of the war. The Defense Department POW/MIA Accounting Agency teams continue to search worldwide to account for MIAs. A grassroots effort and show of concern by Americans is key to gaining and keeping foreign governments support in allowing our teams to search and in assisting them to locate our MIAs.
I am one of the fortunate next of kin family members. My only sibling, SFC Alan L. Boyer, was Missing in Action while on a covert Special Ops mission in Laos on March 28, 1968. Forty-eight years later, a tiny bone shard of Alan’s matched my DNA to his femur & he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honor on June 22, 2016.
Please pause a moment on Sept. 17 to recognize America’s POWs/MIAs. Please write to your senators and congressional representatives to ensure bipartisan support for a full and accurate accounting of our MIAs. We as a nation must never forget their sacrifices and we must pledge to bring them home. The American Legion will have a ceremony on Sept. 17 at the square.