Kern County remembers the missing and captured on National POW/MIA Recognition Day

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - (KBAK/FOX58) September 20 is (Prisoner of War/Missing In Action) Recognition Day. Downtown Bakersfield's Portrait of A Warrior Gallery played host to a special remembrance of those still missing from Kern County and those who endured in captivity.

Leading the proceedings Friday was MIA Remembered co-founder Bill Potter. Potter shared the meaning behind the remembrance.

"They suffered greatly," Potter said. "Amid their heroism from a thousand forgotten battles, they added a luster to the codes we hold most dear."

Several community members and local veterans paid their respects to the missing and captured Friday morning. Among them was American Legion Riders Vice Director Ralph Wenzinger who was alongside several other Legion Members paying tribute to Bruce Murray. Murray was a Korean War veteran who later in life shared his experience as a prisoner of war.

"A great guy, very humble. Most of us did not know that he had been a POW," Wenzinger said. "His family reached out to whoever our congressman was at that particular time to say he never received his medals from being a POW."

The congressman was Representative Jim Costa (D-CA). Eyewitness News found footage from when Murray received that recognition in February 2012.

"You see all these people and you know all these people and it was like what are they doing here," Murray told Eyewitness News in 2012. "And then this was it."

In the video above, Joe Munch from the Veterans of Foreign Wars 97th Command Post is performing a ritual involving symbols of a missing soldier. The purpose is remember those lost and whose families did not receive closure from their unknown fate. The names of the 128 missing Kern County servicemembers since World War II were read following the ritual.

"The names we read today were those missing in action from Kern County," Munch said. "It affects all of us with some degree of separation. Just to remember their names are important."

With an eye to the future, Potter and his wife devised an idea to hang replica dog tags of the over 80,000 servicemembers across the country inside the Portrait of A Warrior Gallery. Here are a few photos from the yet-to-be completed exhibit.

If you are interested in volunteering your services and attaching dog tags to the exhibit, .