MIA-POW Day Saturday at reserve center

The community will observe National POW/MIA Recognition Day on Saturday at the Armed Forces Reserve Center, 15005 N.E. 65th St., Vancouver.

The program starts at 11 a.m. at the center, just off East Fourth Plain Boulevard near Ward Road in east Vancouver.

Featured speaker will be David E.B. Ward, retired Air Force major general and longtime Clark County resident. He completed pilot training in 1962 and joined the Oregon Air National Guard in 1967. He was appointed commander of the Portland-based 142nd Fighter Wing in 1987.

Ward was selected in 1993 to serve as the Air National Guard Special Assistant to the Commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe. He was part of operations in Bosnia and the Northern No-Fly Zone operations in northern Iraq, plus other European, Middle East and African contingencies. He retired in 1996.

The free public ceremony is organized by the Community Military Appreciation Committee. According to the Department of Defense, 83,189 American military personnel are currently unaccounted for. That includes more than 1,600 from Vietnam, nearly 8,000 from Korea and 73,536 from World War II.

A monument to MIAs and POWs was dedicated at the 2014 observance.