{"id":292428,"date":"2024-10-01T14:16:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=292428"},"modified":"2024-10-01T15:38:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:38:10","slug":"navy-families-honor-fallen-service-members-at-pow-mia-recognition-day-rosette-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=292428","title":{"rendered":"Navy Families Honor Fallen Service Members at POW\/MIA Recognition Day Rosette Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Sailors are among 2,503 service members whose names are etched in the marble walls of the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. On Sept. 20, 2024, their family members placed a bronze rosette next to their names to symbolize the recovery and identification of their remains. The rosette ceremony was part of National POW\/MIA Recognition Day, which is observed nationally and globally on the third Friday of September. The observance is hosted by the Defense POW\/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) to remember American service members who were prisoners of war and those who are still missing and unaccounted for. \u201cOur country\u2019s commitment is that we will never ever stop looking because each and every single individual American is important in our democracy,\u201d explained Hon. Charles K. Djou, secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), host of the rosette ceremony.<\/p>\n

During the ceremony, DPAA personnel read the names of 132 service members who have been recovered, identified, and returned to their loved ones since the 2023 POW\/MIA Recognition Day.<\/p>\n

Three Navy families shared the story of their recovered loved one with Commander, Navy Region Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Cdr. Danforth Ellithorpe White<\/p>\n

Cdr. Danforth Ellithorpe White was a Navy reconnaissance pilot who flew RA-5C planes and his final assignment had him on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65).<\/p>\n

Marda White Turman, 55, White\u2019s daughter who placed the rosette on the wall, explained the events leading to her father\u2019s death: White flew a classified mission over Laos, his plane went down, and he was declared missing in action (MIA), which was updated to killed in action on Mar. 31, 1969. On that day, Turman was three months old in her mother\u2019s womb with two infant siblings.<\/p>\n

Turman also placed a rosette her father\u2019s co-pilot, Lt. Ramey Leo Carpenter who also perished that day and left behind a three-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n

In 1997, Turman and other surviving relatives were notified that the DPAA team would excavate her father\u2019s crash site where they discovered a petri dish size amount of bone fragments. Emotion clouded Turman\u2019s voice at times as she described the remarkable way in which her father\u2019s identification unfolded from her father\u2019s jawbone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of them [the bone fragments used for identification], his most outstanding physical feature \u2026 his jaw, his mandible. We were able to bring him home and bury him in Arlington, Cemetery. At the time, I was 28. I was burying the father I never met.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turman then reflected on the importance of the rosette ceremony.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of today, why it\u2019s important is not only to have the rosettes placed to let people know that these service members have been brought home, but also it\u2019s an important message that our men and women fight greatly to protect our freedom and they were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice and the very least that we can do to honor them is to do whatever we can to bring them back and it helps us heal from the loss. I think for them [the fallen], the importance of bringing them home it\u2019s a small, but big act of remembering their service. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lt. Ralph Eugene Foulks Jr.<\/p>\n

Lt. Ralph Eugene Foulks Jr. was a junior pilot who flew the A-4 Skyhawk, a single-seat attack plane based on the USS Oriskany (CVA 34).<\/p>\n

Collen Ijuin, 67, Foulks\u2019 sister, who placed the rosette on the commemoration wall next to her brother\u2019s name, explained the details she knew of the night on Jan. 5, 1968, when her brother was later declared missing in action (MIA), a mystery that would go unsolved for 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was on an attack mission at night. It was him and the lead pilot, they took off at night and identified a convoy. The first pilot took a dive and pulled up and my brother took his dive and they never heard from him again. We don\u2019t know what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ijuin reflected on the time that her brother was missing and the fear about what had happened to him: her mother sent Red Cross packages that were returned, they heard rumors he might be a prisoner of war (POW), but no updates were reported for several months.<\/p>\n

Six months after the last POW returned Foulks\u2019 status was changed to killed in action (KIA).<\/p>\n

In December 1988 Ijuin\u2019s family was notified that what was likely her brother\u2019s remains had been returned from North Vietnam. Ijuin recalled she was 12 at the time when a Navy chaplain knocked on the door late at night with the news. At that time, no testing could conclusively identify Foulks. Later when new DNA testing using the ovum was created, Foulks was positively identified. Ijuin\u2019s family was notified of that conclusive finding 25 years to the day after he went missing, on Jan. 5, 1993.<\/p>\n

Ijuin expressed awe for the ceremony and the work that was done to identify her brother and gratitude for the ceremony to mark the occasion. She also shared that not knowing what exactly happened to her brother still haunts her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked with my middle sister today, who was one of the first 16 \u2019experimental\u2019 ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] women. She retired as a USN [U.S. Navy] commander. She said she remembers that upon the DPAA examination of his remains, it seemed those had been sitting in a warehouse for a long time in Vietnam. Now I wonder all over again \u2013 what happened to my brother. I hope he never suffered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Peter Crosby<\/p>\n

Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Peter Crosby was a Navy reconnaissance pilot based on Miramar, San Diego who flew the Vought Crusader Reconnaissance Fighter (RF-8A) from the USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31).<\/p>\n

Deborah Ann Crosby, 66, Lt. Crosby\u2019s daughter, who placed the rosette next to her father\u2019s name on the commemoration wall, described the events that led to her father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

On June 1, 1965, Lt. Crosby was on a mission to take photographs of the bridge commonly referred to as Dragon\u2019s Jaw Bridge in North Vietnam, which had been bombed the day before. It was a foggy day and Lt. Crosby had to fly lower than usual, flying at 700 miles per hour, 300 feet off the ground, and the area was heavily defended. Lt. Crosby was hit by ground fire and the plane rolled and crashed into a fishpond.<\/p>\n

In 2015, 50 years later, a DPAA team located the site thanks to an eyewitness to the crash, and Lt. Crosby\u2019s alleged remains were brought back to the DPAA laboratory in Hawaii. Using DNA provided by Crosby\u2019s aunt in 2005, the DPAA team confirmed that the remains belonged to Lt. Crosby.<\/p>\n

Crosby visited the DPAA laboratory the day before the rosette ceremony and shared the impact of the visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing here and being in the laboratory yesterday was really kind of remarkable to think that my father\u2019s remains were here to be that close to my dad because there haven\u2019t been many opportunities where I could be somewhat present to his existence in a way, so it\u2019s really meaningful to have this opportunity to tap in the rosette behind my father\u2019s name after 50 years being missing in action. It\u2019s been just an amazing healing event; I guess really no real closure, but there\u2019s a tremendous amount of healing that has taken place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crosby also thanked the DPAA, Navy, the government, and the military as a whole for bringing her father home as promised for a proper burial with military honors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at the MIA-POW flag for so long it was a painful thing to look at. It was always a reminder of loss and pain and grief and when I look at the flag now it is a reminder of a promise kept, so it doesn\u2019t hurt to look at that flag any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Search Continues for MIA Service Members<\/p>\n

Keone J. Nakoa, the White House Asian American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander senior advisor, reminded those at the ceremony that the mission of all recovery agencies is ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Biden has been and remains deeply committed to honoring the generations of women and men and their families who served and sacrificed,\u201d he said. \u201cThis includes pledging to seek out answers for the more than 81,000 brave personnel that are still missing. They are not, and will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Sailors are among 2,503 service members whose names are etched in the marble walls of the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. On Sept. 20, 2024, their family members placed a bronze rosette next to their names to symbolize the recovery and identification of their remains. The rosette […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":292430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292431,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292428\/revisions\/292431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/292430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}