Friday marked National POW-MIA Recognition Day. The Avon-based VFW kicked it off by raising the symbolic black flag in their honor at the Avon Free Public Library.
Gildo T. Consolini VFW Post 3272, which is doing several programs in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, also spent the day recognizing two soldiers from Avon and Canton listed as MIA.
The term of MIA, or Missing in Action, is misleading, according to post officials, and more accurately signifies that the soldiers are unaccounted for, according to Vietnam veteran William Newman, past post commander.
"It is more that they're unaccounted for and the likelihood that they're alive is low," he said.
Though many people have theories that MIA soldiers are still alive somewhere, he said. Some even think that Vietnam soldiers left some of their wounded behind because of the chaos of the battles. In Newman's experience, this was not the case.
One of the post's members, Scott Thomas, of West Springfield, was initially thought to be dead in he Battle of Ngoc Tavak. But he was wounded and recovered after letting out a groan.
Thomas, Newman and others from the post attended a burial in Arligton National Cemetery several years ago for some of the soldiers killed in Vietnam whose bodies were recovered.
To Newman, the MIA soldiers are "the ultimate sacrifice beyond those killed in action. Their families don't know what happened to them.
"The pressure on the government is the only reason we've been able to get these guys back so far," Newman said of bodies of the missing from past wars.
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