EVENTS OF INTEREST TO THE POW/MIA COMMUNITY

 

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Do not forget National POW/MIA Recognition Day Friday, September 15, 202

Annually, the Secretary of Defense holds a ceremony at the Pentagon remembering POW/MIAs. Rarely do members of Congress attend (they are all invited and they all have a POW/MIA flag planted at their office doors on the Hill.). Thus, ask your congressperson and senators to join the Friday ceremony at 10:00am on the River Terrace Parade Field at The Pentagon. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Defense Department website.

The Defense Department POW/MIA Recognition Day Website highlights recovery stories and you can download from the site the annual Recognition Day Poster poster.

For past POW/MIA Posters and to order free copies of this year's poster see here on  the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) website. The DPAA also has National POW/MIA Recognition Day 9-page Tool Kit to help you conduct a meaningful memorial ceremony for POW/MIAs.

EVENTS OF INTEREST

>1898: U.S. IMPERIAL VISIONS AND REVISIONS SYMPOSIUM. 9/8-9. Join the National Portrait Gallery on September 8 and 9 for the 2023 Edgar P. Richardson Symposium, organized around the landmark exhibition 1898: U.S. Imperial Visions and Revisions, the Smithsonian's first major exhibition on U.S. imperialism and the pivotal conflicts of 1898. The symposium will convene over 40 scholars and artists from Cuba, Guam, Hawai‘i, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States for two days of panels, roundtables and gallery talks, and a keynote address by 2022 Pulitzer Prize Winner Ada Ferrer. The keynote address will take place Friday, September 8 at 5pm, and will be followed by an audience Q&A and public reception. The Museum's Portal Website will soon post the conference.

>MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OF THE NAVY, JAMES M. HONEA. 9/12, 1:00pm (EDT), ONLINE. Sponsor: US Navy Memorial. Speaker: James M. Honea, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. Discusses the Navy's recent Three Calls to Action: 1) Warfighting Competency, 2) Professional and Personal Development, and 3) Quality of Life. 

>THE USS HOUSTON: A SURVIVAL STORY. 9/14, 7:00-8:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY. Sponsor: Loudoun County Public Library. Speaker: John K. Schwarz, Executive Director,  USS Houston (CA-30) Survivors’ Association and Next Generations®. 

 
>ROAD TO SURRENDER WITH EVAN THOMAS. 9/14, Noon (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Alexander Hamilton Society. Speaker: author Evan Thomas, writer, correspondent, and editor for 33 years at Time and Newsweek. 
PURCHASE BOOK 
 
>VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WAR II. 9/16,10:00am-1:00pm (EDT), VIRTUAL. Sponsor: Friends of the National World War II Memorial. Speakers: “The Partnership: George Marshall, Henry Stimson, and the Extraordinary Collaboration That Won World War II"with author Edward Aldrich; “A Woman's View of the Pacific Ocean Theater” with Lorissa Rinehart who writes about women, art, war, and their points of intersection and is author of First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent; and “The Merchant Marine in WWII” with Dave Yoho served in World War II in the Merchant Marine and later built a highly successful career as an entrepreneur and business leader. Moderator: best-selling author and Friends’ Resident Historian Alex Kershaw. 

>OCCUPATION: THE LEGACY OF THE ASIATIC PACIFIC WAR. 9/16, 9:00am-5:00pm (CDT), In person and online. Sponsor:  The Admiral Nimitz Foundation.  Speakers: Richard B. Frank, internationally recognized leading authority on the Asia-Pacific War; Dr. Xiaobing Li, professor of the Department of History and Geography and the Don Betz Endowed Chair in International Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO); Ricardo Trota Jose, professor of history at the University of the Philippines, Diliman; Mindy L. Kotler is founder and director of Asia Policy Point. Special guest, Marie Vallejo, author of Dauntless, a book about the First and Second Filipino Regiments. 

>. WAR CRIMES - FROM WWII UNTIL TODAY: 6TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON WWII IN THE PHILIPPINES. 9/23, 10:00am-4:00pm (PDT), In person, Facebook Live. Sponsor: Bataan Legacy Historical Society in partnership with the University of San Francisco's Philippine Studies Program, Memorare Manila 1945 and USF Kasamahan. Speakers: James Zarsadiaz, Director, Philippine Studies Program, University of San Francisco; Prof. Mark Hull, Professor of War Crimes, U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth; Philippine Consul General in San Francisco Neil F. Ferrer; Father Paul Fitzgerald, S.J., President, University of San Francisco; Benjamin Hall, Fox News State Department Correspondent, Eyewitness to War Crimes Today (Via Zoom); Jose Custodio, Fellow, Consortium of Indo Pacific Researchers; Christopher Capozzola, Professor of History, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Richard Frank, Pacific War historian, author, Tower of Skulls; Marie Vallejo, author of Dauntless, a book about the First and Second Filipino Regiments; Kate LaFerriere, daughter of Frank Innis, former civilian POW in Los Banos; Cynthia Bonta, survivor of the Los Baños massacre, mother of California Attorney General Rob Bonta; and Richard Foye, author of Foye And The Filipinos Bailout, Escape, And Rescue Of A Navy Fighter Pilot In World War Two Luzon, is the son of Ensign William Foye, an F6F Hellcat Pilot and a member of the Air Group Twenty assigned to the USS Enterprise (CV6). 

>WWII: AIR WAR, THE PACIFIC THEATER: ONLINE CONTINUING EDUCATION COURSE. September 4–November 6, ONLINE. Sponsor: National WWII Museum and Arizona State University. Speaker: John Curatola, PhD, Military Historian at the Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. 

>EXHIBIT OPENING: THE PRICE OF UNPREPAREDNESS: POWS IN THE PHILIPPINES DURING WORLD WAR II. 9/30, 10:00-11:30am (EDT), IN PERSON ONLY*. Sponsor: MacArthur Memorial. Speakers: Dr. Frank Blazich, Jr., Curator of Modern Military History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and author of Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II; Mary McKay Maynard, she and her family spent two years hiding from occupying Japanese forces in the jungles of Mindanao before being rescued by the USS Narwhal as chronicled in My Faraway Home: An American Family’s WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival; and MacArthur Memorial Archivist James Zobel.   *For the virtual option Email macarthureducation@norfolk.gov  and ask to be added to the post-event email list. This list will be used to send a one-time email with a link to the digital exhibit guide and a recording of the exhibit opening event.

>VETERANS AFFAIRS SECRETARY DENIS MCDONOUGH. 11/6, 12:30-2:00pm (EDT), IN PERSON (LUNCH AND FEE) AND ON C-SPAN. Sponsor: National Press Club. Speaker: Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough delivers an update on the state of America's veterans and their families, and on the implementation of the PACT Act.