Groups co-host reception for POW/MIA Recognition

At the second annual POW/MIA (prisoners of war/missing in action) Recognition Ceremony at the state Capitol in Little Rock, the United States Daughters of 1812, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Colonial Dames 17th Century and the Daughters of the American Colonists, provided a light dessert reception for attendees. Eleven members of the groups provided U.S. flags and lapel ribbons to attendees.

The event, planned and coordinated by Andrea Welch Fisher, Survivor Outreach Services senior lead coordinator at Camp Robinson, was attended by approximately 150 people. Speakers included Gov. Asa Hutchison and Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin. In attendance were three children of World War II POWs. Patti Mullins, received service medals, awarded posthumously, on behalf of her father, John W. Mullins, who was a POW in Nazi Germany. Mullins related she did not know her father was a POW until she was a teenager. He never talked about it.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day is observed on the third Friday in September. It honors those who were prisoners of war and those who are still missing in action. It was established by an Act of Congress, by the passage of Section 1082 of the 1998 Defense Authorization Act. It is one of six days that the POW/MIA flag can be flown. It was first recognized by Public Law 101-355 in 1990. No symbol better commemorates the sacrifice POW/ MIA veterans have made for the country than the famous POW/MIA flag, which was designed during the Vietnam War as a symbol of national concern about U.S. military personnel taken as prisoners of war or listed as missing in action, according to the National League of POW/MIA families. In 1970, Mary Hoff, the wife of a soldier listed as missing in action in the Vietnam War and a member of the National League of POW/MIA Families, wanted to create a symbol to honor her husband and other POW/MIA veterans.