(CINNAMINSON) — Assemblyman Herb Conaway, Jr., M.D. (D-Burlington) issued a multimedia package Thursday in which he discusses the importance of hosting an annual POW*MIA remembrance, honoring those who have returned and those who are still missing in the line of duty.
Started by then-Assemblyman Jack Conners in 2001, the annual non-partisan remembrance is held on the National POW*MIA Day of Remembrance (the third Friday in September) and has grown from 90 attendees gathering at a local VFW post to an event hosting hundreds of individuals, including: POWs and their families; active duty military personnel; representatives from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs; and representatives from national, state, county and local veterans’ organizations.
The multimedia package consists of a video of Assemblyman Conaway — who served as a Captain in the United States Air Force Medical Corps — discussing the POW*MIA remembrance event and audio and a transcript of same.
The video can be accessed directly via our website — www.assemblydems.com — or by clicking here.
The audio file is available upon request.
A transcript of comments from Assemblyman Conaway is appended below:
Assemblyman Herb Conaway, Jr., M.D. (D-Burlington):
“On this 12th annual POW*MIA event, we have been joined, once again, by hundreds of people who take time to remember our POW*MIAs.
“I just was speaking to a veteran moments ago and he said, you know, it’s good that you take time to remember us. It’s important to me that that be done. And I said to him, it’s important to thank those who have given so much and it’s also an important education for those who will be called on to do for their country in the future.
“I’m a veteran myself; these kinds of ceremonies, these kinds of expressions of public support for veterans is particularly poignant for me.”