Omaha vets honor POW/MIAs on 'Recognition Day'

Sgt. Dennis Pavlik and seven other soldiers trudged for four weeks through the dust and mud of war-ravaged Korea.

Starving, parched and ravaged with dysentery, he could barely move. But a machine gun stuck in his back by his Chinese captors kept him marching forward until they arrived at a North Korean prison camp known as “Death Valley.”

The 21-year-old soldier from Elba, Nebraska, lost 60 pounds. Lice invaded his hair and body. At night, rats crawled over his body.

Pavlik’s ordeal as prisoner of war lasted 42 days, cut short only because of the truce that ended hostilities between North and South Korea on July 27, 1953.

“Those were the darkest days of my life,” he said.

Pavlik, now 91 and living in Omaha, is the last surviving Korean War POW from Nebraska. He was an honored guest Friday as about 75 people gathered near the colonnade at Memorial Park for the fourth annual observance of National POW/MIA Recognition Day.

“We are thankful that you are here — a hero among us,” said retired Air Force Col. Ben “Felix” Ungerman, a top staffer to Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb.

An Air Force RPTC color guard from the University of Nebraska at Omaha opened the ceremony, which concluded with a three-gun volley fired by seven members of American Legion Post No. 1, and the rendering of taps.

Representatives of 13 groups or organizations placed wreaths around the Korean and Vietnam War veterans monument — the most since the event started, said Fred Tisdale, of American Legion Post No. 1, who organized and emceed the ceremony.

“It’s getting bigger every year,” he said.

The Legion veterans set up an empty table and chair to represent the MIAs who have never been accounted for — about 82,000 since World War II.

“They are commonly called POWs, MIAs,” said Tisdale, an Air Force veteran. “We call them brothers.”

Tisdale said the empty table was set with a white cloth, to symbolize the purity of the motives of the missing service members who took up arms to defend their country.

On the table was a vase holding a red rose, symbolizing the families of the missing who have waited for their return; and a candle, symbolizing the “unquenchable spirit” of those held prisoner. An inverted glass reminded visitors that the missing service member is not present to drink a toast with his comrades.

“They are not here. Remember,” Tisdale said. “Remember until they come come. Remember.”

The ceremony’s guest speaker, Franklin Damann, is responsible more than almost anyone else for bringing home the remains of the MIAs. He is the director of the Nebraska laboratory for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, at Offutt Air Force Base. The agency is tasked with finding and identifying MIAs.

Damann told the story of Pfc. Sonny Simon, a 20-year-old soldier from Wisconsin who disappeared during the battle of Hürtgen Forest, a long, brutal battle along the border of Belgium and Germany that stretched for months in late 1944 and early 1945.

Simon’s family despaired of ever learning what happened to him. His sister, Eileen, regretted that she hadn’t said goodbye to him the morning he left for the Army because he was still sleeping.

In 2019, historians examined records and theorized that the remains in a grave in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium might match Simon’s.

His remains were disinterred and sent to the Offutt lab. He was identified through a DNA match with Eileen, and with Simon’s brother, James.

Both were still alive to see Sonny Simon buried in his hometown in March.

“His sister, Eileen, who didn’t want to wake him that morning, got to say goodbye,” Damann said.

He said 2,388 Nebraskans and Iowans remain missing from the wars since World War II — including Pvt. Hymie Epstein of Omaha, a hero of the battle of Buna in New Guinea in November-December 1942; Sgt. Cecil French of Buffalo, Nebraska, missing in Korea in March 1951; and Staff Sgt. Manny Puentes, a Vietnam War MIA from Omaha, whose brother, Jose, laid a wreath in his honor Friday.

“We never stop looking for our missing service members,” Damann said. “Together, we represent the unwavering commitment of our nation, never to leave a colleague behind.”

Dennis Pavlik served as a living link to those still missing, including some men he served with. He understands he is one of the lucky ones. And he will never forget the feeling the day he walked back to freedom across the “Bridge of No Return,” at the Military Demarcation Line that separates North and South Korea.

“There was no relief like that. A big weight was taken off my shoulders,” Pavlik said. “The most beautiful sight in the world was our beloved American flag — the red, white and blue.”