Tribute shines spotlight on those who never returned

Earl and Evelyn Marit finds Earl Marit’s brother’s name on a traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall on Friday following a memorial service at Welk Theatre.
Mindy Honey | Branson Tri-Lakes News

By Mindy Honey
Society Editor
Originally published Nov. 10, 2009

Every year, Earl Marit makes the trip from Walnut, Ill., to Branson around Veterans Day to pay tribute to prisoners of war and those missing in action, including his brother, who has been missing for the past four decades.

“He was never found,” Marit’s wife Evelyn said. “It is just hard. He left a wife and a little boy, he was about 3. They just said he was missing.”

Earl Marit said at one time, his brother was reportedly found and returned, but Earl Marit said his brother has never been returned from Vietnam.

“We’ve been wishing there had been a body found for some closure,” Evelyn Marit said.

“There were seven of us boys and he was the one next to me and we were quite close,” Earl Marit said.

Mary Schantag, of the P.O.W. Network, helped organize a memorial service. She said they do this every year so people don’t forget.

“Every time we have a war, we have a POW and once it leaves the headlines, people forget,” she said.

“We have 92,000 people missing — 92,000 we have sent to war that have not come back home.”

She said they want to make sure those people are not forgotten.

“We are here for one purpose and that is to ensure that no POW or MIA or hostage or detainee who has ever been captured or duty status whereabouts unknown, is ever forgotten,” she said. “It is not a memorial service. It is a tribute of remembrance.”

Others in attendance Friday morning were there to pay respects.

Roger Hulse brought his 80-year-old father, Bill, from Prairie Grove, Ark.

“I am a very proud veteran,” Bill Hulse said, adding that he served in the Army from 1950-52 as a lab technician.

“We got up at four o’clock and came up here,” Roger Hulse said. “We try to get up to some things like this.

“He may not be here next year.”