[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 127 (Tuesday, August 4, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S4427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

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             COMMEMORATING NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY

  Mr. CRAPO. Madam President, I join the POW*MIA Awareness Rally Corp. 
of Pocatello, ID, in acknowledging National POW/MIA Recognition Day 
this September 18, 2026.
  I am grateful for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's, DPAA, 
steady and often challenging work to meet its responsibility of 
recovering America's servicemembers. Each year, the DPAA leads the 
creation of a poster commemorating National POW/MIA Recognition Day, as 
ceremonies are held across the country to honor those who were held 
captive and returned, as well as those who remain missing. The year's 
poster reads, ``Warrior Ethos: `I will always place the mission first . 
. . I will never leave a fallen comrade.' ''
  Second Lieutenant Charles Atteberry, a World War II servicemember 
from Parma who had been missing and unidentified for 80 years, is one 
of the Idaho servicemembers most recently returned home. Through the 
U.S. military's use of DNA testing, Lt. Atteberry was identified from a 
mass grave in Taiwan and returned to Idaho in 2025. Lt. Atteberry's 
brother Lloyd also served in the military as a pilot during World War 
II and is still considered missing in action since he was reportedly 
shot down in 1943.
  On June 10, 2026, the DPAA also accounted for U.S. Army Air Forces 
Staff Sgt. Harold T. Thompson, 24, who was killed during World War II. 
The DPAA reported, ``In the winter of 1944, Thompson was assigned to 
the 718th Bombardment Squadron, 449th Bombardment Group, in Italy. On 
Jan. 30, he was serving as a gunner aboard a B-24 Liberator bomber on a 
mission to Udine, Italy. The plane was shot down while returning from 
its mission and was last sighted north of the Isle of Morgo off the 
Italian coast near the town of Grado. Three crew members made it out of 
the plane before the crash, but only one survived. The other seven 
members, including Thompson, were believed to have still been in the 
aircraft when it crashed.''
  As we celebrate Idahoans' return home, we maintain hope for the 
return of Idaho's other servicemembers, including the eight who remain 
unaccounted for from the Vietnam war. This includes Major William 
Ellsworth Lemmons, who was on a visual reconnaissance mission in South 
Vietnam on June 18, 1967, when the aircraft he piloted failed to return 
from the mission for unknown reasons and was declared missing. Major 
Lemmons is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National 
Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in 
Washington, DC.
  I thank America's servicemembers, veterans, and their families for 
their extraordinary commitment to our country, as I remain deeply 
grateful to those who keep attention on bringing every American 
servicemember and the DPAA and its partners working steadily to provide 
the fullest possible accounting of missing U.S. personnel to their 
families and our country.
  To support these efforts, I continue to use every opportunity to 
press for enactment of the Bring Our Heroes Home Act. This legislation 
would help eliminate obstacles preventing families and caseworkers from 
accessing the records needed for recovering America's POWs and MIA.
  We honor America's missing servicemembers and those they served 
beside by never giving up in our pursuit of finding them and bringing 
them home.

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