Keeping a promise
The National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony in Ocala included former service personnel and ROTC cadets.
Dorothy Antonelli, left, whose uncle’s remains have never been recovered from his service in the Korean War, looks over the symbolic POW/MIA table on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, Sept. 19, 2025, at the Ocala-Marion County Veterans Memorial Park, during which U.S. Army veteran Kathy Henderson, center, and U.S. Navy veteran Donald Kennedy, performed a ceremony that explains the meaning of each item on the table. [Photo by Andy Fillmore/Ocala Gazette]
A ceremony was held Sept. 19, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, at the Ocala-Marion County Veterans Memorial Park to remember and honor America’s prisoners of war and service members missing in action. “Delivering on the nation’s promise” was the theme.
Daisy Diaz, a U.S. Navy veteran and Marion County’s director of Veterans Services, opened the ceremony and welcomed attendees.
The West Port High School AJROTC, led by retired U.S. Army Maj. Richard Telesco, posted the colors. The poem “POW/MIA,” by Del “Abe” Jones, was read by Cadet LTC Ryan Frias, battalion commander of the unit, according to the ceremony program.
The poem, available on the Authors Den website, reads in part: “So many families ask the question, when will the answers be found? and “The pain is in not knowing, how to put loved ones’ to rest.”
Dorothy Antonelli attended the ceremony wearing a shirt with the words: “POW/MIA: You are not forgotten.” She also wore a necklace with a small portrait photo of her uncle, Peter Patete, then age 20, whose remains were never recovered from his time in service in the Korean War.
Dorothy Antonelli shows a necklace with a photo of her uncle, Peter Patete, then 20, whose remains were never returned from his service in the Korean War. [Photo by Andy Fillmore/Ocala Gazette]
Antonelli, who was born after Patete served, has remained in contact with POW organizations and has visited Korea seeking a closure on her family member’s death.
“It’s still hurtful,” she said.
Navy veteran Donald Kennedy and Army veteran Kathy Henderson, both with the Marion County Memorial Honor Guard, performed a symbolic POW/MIA table ceremony, with each item having a meaning, for example the salt representing tears.
The keynote speaker, retired Navy Rear Admiral William Leigher, spoke of the “moral contract” the American people have with POW/MIA service members to never leave them behind and continue to seek the fallen.
“Families with a POW/MIA member carry grief that doesn’t end with a ceremony,” he said.
Leigher is a member of the nonprofit TOPVETS organization in the Ocala Preserve community.
Jeff Dean, also a TOPVETS member, joined the ceremony, as did Navy veteran Ron Carrigan and Linda Brown, along with Veterans of Foreign Wars and Auxiliary members Mike and Joy Atterbery.
Event attendees included Vietnam War veteran “Cookie” Burke and Kathy Shaver, whose uncle was killed in World War II. Marine Corps League Post 061 had several members in attendance.
Retired Army lieutenant commander and chaplain Carolyn Smith delivered an invocation and benediction and Renee Coventry, with the Marion County Veterans Events Committee, led the national anthem. Rochelle Gerofsky, regent of the Ocala Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, led the Pledge of Allegiance.
According to DPAA.mil, as of 1973, a total of 84,608 service members remain missing. Accounted for numbers are also listed on the website:
World War II – Missing, 73,684; accounted for, 1,837
Korean War – Missing, 8,157; accounted for, 759
Vietnam War – Missing, 2,633; accounted for, 1,067
Cold War – Missing, 128; accounted for, two
Gulf Wars and Libya Operations – Missing, six; accounted for, zero
The Department of Defense POWs/MIA Accounting Agency has a mission to “Provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation,” according to the site.
The DPAA held a POW/ MIA Recognition Day Ceremony on Sept. 19 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The National Recognition Day was established by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, according to the DPAA website.
To learn more about county services and the vets park, go to marionfl.org/agencies-departments/departments-facilities-offices/veterans-services
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