National POW/MIA Recognition Day has special meaning for Tom Cannon, whose brother Kevin went missing in Vietnam in the spring of 1968.
Cannon, the family programs director for the Army Reserve Support Command stationed in Coraopolis, recalled those anxious days, during Friday's observance at the Army Reserve Center in Carbon, Hempfield Township, the home of the 14th Quartermaster Company.
Cannon, of Collier, Allegheny County, said knowing that his brother was missing in action was "like having your heart yanked out of your body." A week passed before his parents and Kevin's 10 brothers and sisters learned that the young soldier had, in fact, been killed.
Cannon said his father never recovered fully from the shock. Kevin was 20 when he died on April 4, 1968, a member of the Army's 9th Infantry Division.
"It's a great honor for me to be here today," Cannon said. "We must never forget."
That sentiment was frequently expressed during yesterday's 12-hour POW-MIA vigil. Dorothy Benyacko Carbisiero, who helped to arrange the tribute as a member of the 14th Quartermaster's Family Readiness Group, said as a former GI, she knows the importance of recalling the heroism and sacrifice of soldiers, sailors and Marines.
"We are military," she said. "We support one another. That's the way it should be."
This was the third year for the local observance. Each year more people attend and take part, Carbisiero said.
Just before noon, a beefy parade of white shirts and ties trooped through the Reserve Center. It was the Greensburg Central Catholic High School football team and their coach, Muzzy Colosimo.
The boys heard from John E. Spisso, a member of the Armbrust Veterans Association and a civilian aide emeritus to the secretary of the Army, who read a long portion of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's address to the graduating class at West Point in 1962. In it MacArthur commended "duty, honor, country" to the future captains, colonels and generals of the Army.
The team left moments after Spisso finished his remarks and moments ahead of the playing of taps and a benediction. Afterward, Spisso, who landed under MacArthur's command to retake the Philippines from the Japanese in 1944, said he hoped the boys had learned something about love of country and sacrifice.
"Lest we forget, we are a nation at war," Spisso told his audience. "Our soldiers and Marines are in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan. We ask that you continue your outstanding support for them and their families."
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