UPDATED: Ceremony Set for Saturday to Raise POW/MIA Flag in Mill Pond Park

Editor's note: Rolling Thunder, Inc. will host a ceremony at 4 p.m. Saturday, March 12, to raise the POW/MIA flag at the veteran's memorial in Mill Pond Park according to the organization's state director, Randy Galbraith.  The public is encouraged to attend the event, which will include the reading of a proclamation, a full color guard and military ceremony. The following article about the POW/MIA flag first ran Feb. 18 on Brighton Patch.

In response to an outpouring of support from local veterans, the on Thursday night approved a citizen's request to fly the POW/MIA flag under the American flag in Mill Pond Park.

More than 20 veterans and their family members—many of them belonging to the local veterans group Rolling Thunder Inc.—packed the council meeting in a show of support for a petition from Brighton resident and business owner Bryan Bradford to add the flag to the pole in .

Bradford sent a letter to the city in November asking for the flag to be flown in the park. He also explained that he would purchase the first flag and that Rolling Thunder had agreed to maintain it according the proper protocol.

A disabled veteran himself, Bradford also expressed his frustration that the POW/MIA flag was not already being flown.

“We still have thousands of missing soldiers spanning four generations, and we are currently adding names to that list. I feel that the flag would bring needed attention to just how much our brave men and women sacrifice every day so we can be safe at home,” Bradford said.

The flag—a black-and-white silhouette of an emaciated prisoner of war with a strand of barbed wire, a watchtower in the background and the words “You are not forgotten”—was designated by Congress as “the symbol of our nation's concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia,” according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Today, it stands as a symbol for all prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action from all American wars and is the only flag permitted to fly under the American flag on the White House lawn.

“The importance should stand on its own merit. We have today 88,000 men and women who have served our country who have not come home. The only memorial that they have is a POW/MIA flag,” Bradford said.

After the veterans spoke, council approved the petition unanimously without discussion. Mayor Ricci Bandkau thanked the audience for the big turnout.

In his petition, Bradford said he intended to hold a ceremony to raise the flag. There is no date set.