CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Karoni Forrester understands what families who attended Saturday's PIO/MIA day ceremony are going through.
The event's keynote speaker and POW/MIA advocate's father, Capt. Ron Forrester, went missing in action during the Vietnam War. Since she was child, she’s been searching for answers about her father.
“My dad’s pilot was recently identified, and they’ll be able to finally lay him to rest after 50 years," she said Saturday. "We’re still waiting on information about my father and 1,577 other MIAs from Vietnam, not to mention all the others still missing from Korea and World War II.”
While the Mayor’s Committee for Veterans Affairs hosted its POW/MIA event on Saturday, the nation observed PIO/MIA Recognition Day on Friday.
The day honors those who served their country, but never made it home.
Veterans from every military branch, including their families, watched as guest speakers told their stories in the Ben Garza Gym.
The Veterans Band played official military songs and watched the parade of colors.
"It’s important that we do the ceremonies to remind people of the real sacrifice," said band leader Ram Chavez, a U.S. Army combat medic from 1967-68 and part of the Vietnam Veterans Corpus Christi chapter. "You know that they haven’t come home and their families, they say ‘Nobody remembers my brother anymore. Nobody remembers," he said.
The League of Wives of POW/MIA Memorial Project helps ensure people remember contributions made by prisoners of war and personnel that is missing in action.
Group co-chair Alexia Palacios-Peters said that events like this are not only important to families whose loved ones currently are lost, but the military community as a whole.
"This spoke to me as a military spouse and the part and role that I play in supporting my active-duty service member," she said.
Chavez said a day like PIO/MIA Recognition Day is important, not only for the veterans, but also for the families who still don’t have answers.
"Everybody talks about it: 'Let’s not forget,' but, unfortunately, they do forget. We who serve with them, if we don’t remember them, who will?"