POW/MIA veterans remembered
CONNELLSVILLE – U.S. Army veteran Benjamin Lincoln of Connellsville said he was setting up radios when he was captured by German soldiers in World War II. The 93-year-old Purple Heart recipient was one of four prisoners of war from Connellsville honored during a POW/missing in action ceremony Saturday at the Connellsville National Guard Readiness Center.
Lincoln, who was drafted in 1943, didn’t provide many details about his capture, but said he survived being shot three times on the battlefield.
The ceremony also paid tribute to Fayette County veterans who lost their lives during the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq and the Pennsylvania Vietnam War veterans who remain unaccounted for by the military.
To the left of the room, a table for one was set to symbolize those who still remain captured or have been listed MIA.
Keynote speaker Charles W. Watson, local attorney and Vietnam War veteran, said most people who know are unaware that he served in the war.
“I talk little of the experience and realize that I suffer to some degree from survival guilt,” said Watson, who received the Bronze Star and became a sergeant with the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division.
When a solider becomes a POW or MIA, Watson said it is impossible for civilians to relate fully to such pain.
All we can do, said Watson, is honor, remember and respect those unfortunate brave soldiers who have suffered through the experience.
As the names county veterans killed over the last few years were read, the ringing of a bell followed in their honor.
Bill Feniello of Connellsville, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, tried to fight back tears when he heard the name of his grandson Shelby Fienello, a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq in 2006 at age 25.
Shelby Feniello, who was serving his second tour in Iraq, was the first person from Connellsville to die in the war when insurgent forces detonated an improvised explosive device near his vehicle.
According to Gerald Browell, there were 94 servicemen unaccounted for at the end of the Vietnam War that were either POW, MIA or killed in action where their bodies have not been recovered by service personnel.
Browell said that figure is one less this year as the remains of one veteran were returned to the U.S.
Watson said events like the one held Saturday are all that remain to honor such sacrifice.