Vigil starts today with candlelight ceremony
Texarkana’s Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 278 will hold its 30th annual two-day POW-MIA Vigil today and Saturday at the KoreaVietnam Memorial near the West Seventh Street and North State Line Avenue intersection.
Today’s ceremonies will start just before 5 p.m. and close with a candlelight ceremony at 8 p.m.
Saturday’s ceremony will include the 23rd annual Ride to Remember. This usually includes dozens of cars, motorcycles, pickups and big rigs. The VVA asks that there be no drug or alcohol usage during the event.
The procession will leave the Arkansas Welcome Center at about 2:40 p.m. and proceed south down North State Line to the memorial site. Just as the procession arrives, about 174 balloons will be released—one for each American from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas still unaccounted for from Vietnam.
The VVA will then conduct a POW-MIA remembrance service starting at 3:10 p.m. The vigil will conclude at 8 p.m. with a candlelight service.
The vigil will honor and remember U.S. military service members still classified as either prisoners of war or missing in action from all wars.
The vigil also aims to raise awareness of the POW-MIA issue, as well as to let the families of these men and women know that they aren’t alone in their quest for answers and closure.
The event’s organizers will spend one minute in honor of each American who remains unaccounted for from the Vietnam War (to date 1,611). They also will spend one minute in honor of each American unaccounted for from the Korean War, including the 37 local service members whose names are engraved on the memorial wall in downtown Texarkana. One minute also will be spent in honor of each American unaccounted for from the Gulf War of 1991, as well as from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
Besides the vigil, Shreveport’s Overton Brooks VA Medical Center will hold its third Veterans Town Hall meeting this year at 5 p.m. Sept. 21 at Arkansas Convention Center.
For more information regarding either of these events, call 870-773-8279 or 903-824-2727 or 903-628-7216.