Morgan City area veterans gathered Tuesday afternoon at the Morgan City City Hall to honor POWs and to sign a proclamation. Attending, from left, were Sherman Whiting, a Marine and quartermaster of VFW Post 4222; Donald Grayson, (standing) World War II and Korean War Army veteran, and post commander of VFW Post 4222; Morgan City Councilman Larry Bergeron; and Berwick Mayor Louis Ratcliff.
MORGAN CITY — National POW-MIA Recognition Day is Friday, and a proclamation was signed Tuesday at the Morgan City City Hall to mark the day.
Sherman Whiting, quartermaster of Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 4222, explained the purpose of the local proclamation.
“We honor the POWs every year in some way,” Whiting said. “Our organization is one of the leaders in staying in contact with countries where we have lost military people, and we strive to bring every missing in action or prisoner of war home,” he said.
“It’s a symbol that the mayors of all three local municipalities are in agreement that we should honor or set aside a day to remember the prisoners of war or missing in action,” he said. “There are some here in the community who were prisoners of war.”
Donald Grayson, post commander for VFW Post 4222, was also at the proclamation signing and he explained its purpose.
“I think it’s mainly so that people don’t forget that there are POWs and MIAs and that we should keep trying to get them back, those that are alive, and get the remains back of those who died.”
Grayson and Whiting, both of Morgan City, spoke of their respective military service.
“I served in World War II and Korea in the Army,” Grayson said. His World War II service constituted “a couple of years in Alaska and over in Europe in Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany.”
Whiting joined the United States Marine Corps in 1968 and went into the Reserves after leaving active duty in 1971.
“I stayed in the Reserves long enough to go out with a Reserve unit out of New Orleans to Desert Storm,” he said. He was a radio relay chief in Kuwait, he said.
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