[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 150 (Wednesday, September 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S5571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY

  Mr. CRAPO. Mr. President, I call attention to National POW/MIA 
Recognition Day through Senate statements, such as this, each year to 
try to help keep national focus on the return of American 
servicemembers and help their families to know that our country stands 
with them as work continues to find the answers they more than deserve.
  As we observe this National POW/MIA Day on September 20, 2019, a 
special tribute must be paid to the families and friends of missing 
servicemembers. Too often, their quiet, ceaseless, and enormous service 
to our Nation is overlooked. Many have carried on through years and 
even decades of sorrow and uncertainty. Their questions must be 
replaced with answers. Their loss must be softened, if possible, by 
resolution.
  Those working hard through challenging conditions to get needed 
answers and bring all American servicemembers home also deserve 
appreciation and steady encouragement. Thank you to those who work for 
and assist the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and related efforts. 
So far this month, the agency has reported accounting for more than 20 
missing servicemembers, many of whom were lost in the attack on Pearl 
Harbor and the Korean war. Piecing together the circumstances, 
whereabouts and lives of those lost cannot be easy, but bringing them 
home is critical to honoring their service. To help with this effort, I 
have continually fought for the Bring Our Heroes Home Act that is meant 
to address obstacles preventing families and caseworkers from accessing 
the records needed for recovery efforts by putting one entity in charge 
of prioritizing and facilitating the declassification of records 
related to missing servicemembers.
  Thank you to the members of the POW*MIA Awareness Rally Corp. of 
Pocatello, ID, and other similar groups that hold rallies and other 
events to keep a spotlight on the immense service of our Nation's 
veterans and the need for an ongoing focus on bringing them all home. 
Bringing all of the 82,000 Americans the Defense POW/MIA Accounting 
Agency reports remain missing home will certainly not fill the losses 
felt in far too many American families, but those who have served our 
Nation deserve no less than to rest at home, and we cannot rest until 
they do.

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