POW/MIA Day events honor missing military members (Dale Raebel)

Jacksonville will remember missing military members Friday and Saturday at events marking National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

An open house is scheduled Friday at Jacksonville’s National POW/MIA Memorial at Cecil Airport on the city’s Westside. Speakers on Saturday will include Meghan Wagner, daughter of Navy Capt. Scott Speicher, a Cecil-based aviator who became the first American combat casualty of the Iraq War.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day was established in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter to remember and honor missing and captive military personnel, their families and their communities.

Jacksonville’s National POW/MIA Memorial is centered around the former Naval Air Station Cecil Field’s Chapel of the High Speed Pass at 6112 POW-MIA Memorial Parkway. The memorial already had a Hero’s Walk of Honor, a starburst metal display of aircraft and a granite base seal of the former Master Jet Base. It now has four concrete pads for restored Navy aircraft. The walkways between them represent a miniature replica of the base’s runways,

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