POW/MIA Chair of Honor Coming to Marco

A wonderful addition may be coming to Veterans Community Park when it reopens in about a year from now, courtesy of the Rolling Thunder local chapter. The organization concentrates on keeping the POW/MIA issue in the public’s view, so that the nation does not forget them and continues to work on the return of remains to the United States.

The organization has adopted the “POW/MIA Chair of Honor Program” and is actively placing POW-MIA Chairs in public venues across the nation. The chairs serve as a symbolic memorial to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. The POW-MIA never returned home, and will never fill the empty chairs. The chairs also serve as a reminder of our nation’s commitment to bring home all of our prisoner of war and missing in action service members.

At the close of 2020, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, there were 83,204 unaccounted military personnel. Those numbers include 73,547 from World War II, 7,883 from the Korean War, 1,642 from the Vietnam War, 126 from the Cold War and six from Iraq and other recent conflicts. 

Carl Steinhoff, President of Rolling Thunder Chapter 5 in Naples, came before Marco Island City Council at their December 7 meeting seeking their support to place a chair at Veterans Community Park (following the completion of the work currently in progress). The park’s Veterans Memorial was built through the generous donations of Marco residents, and was initially dedicated on November 11, 2011. Additional donations have enabled further enhancements, such as the Freedom Fountain, which welcomes visitors entering the memorial space.

The city’s only cost for the POW-MIA Chair of Honor would be the cement pad, upon which the chair would sit.

Council thanked Mr. Steinhoff for his presentation, agreed to the donation and referred the placement of the “Chair of Honor” to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee to work out the details and specifics.