POWs share experiences at ceremony
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN, gmartin@sun-herald.com
Art Rimback, left, shares a remembrance — of a comrade who died in a Vietnamese prison camp — with Luis "Jerry" Chirichigno, right, who survived three years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as Ray Boss, a Navy Seabee veteran, looks on, during a Military Heritage Museum reception in Punta Gorda Saturday, after a POW/MIA remembrance ceremony.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Members of the U.S. Paratroopers post the colors at the POW/MIA Recognition Day Commemorative Ceremony at Fishermen's Village Saturday in Punta Gorda.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Ruben Sierra, left, and George Spidel set a symbolic missing man table with a tablecloth as Dave Rockow explains its meaning, during the POW/MIA ceremony Saturday.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Two veterans who served in Vietnam bow their heads during an invocation by Charlotte County Veterans Council Chaplain Peter Shanks at the ceremony.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Some salute, others put a hand over their heart, in response to the sound of taps played by bugler Bob Powers at the conclusion of the POW/MIA ceremony Saturday at Fishermen's Village.
PUNTA GORDA — Luis “Jerry” Chirichigno had been in Vietnam as a U.S. Army helicopter gunship pilot for only a month and a half when he got shot down.
At the time, he was trying to land so he could trade his seat to a severely wounded comrade whose helicopter already had been downed, during a rescue mission in South Vietnam on Nov. 2, 1969.
