American Legion to pay for POW/MIA Chair

MIDDLEBORO:- By Jane Lopes, Middleboro Gazette, December 19, 2013

William Mark Smith was 21 when he was captured by Viet Cong after falling down an embankment while on patrol with his company.
SSgt. Smith was listed as "missing in action" after the March 1969 incident, and although it was learned from interviews with former prisoners in 1973 that the young sergeant had died in a prison camp, hisbody was never found.
The Middleboro High School graduate is thus one of the hometown heroes who never returned and whose whereabouts is officially unknown.
Middleboro's POW/MIA will be among those remembered when local residents look at the chair that is to be placed in the Town Hall and carried to town meetings and other venues at the request of Rolling Thunder. That organization, whose mission is to raise awareness about the 91,719 members of the military since World War 1 "who have yet to come home," as Massachusetts chapter president Joe D'Entremont put it during his presentation to the selectmen Monday night.
The Massachusetts chapter, one of 93 across the country, has been working on a project to place POW/MIA chairs in major locations around the state, including the town halls or municipal buildings in the 351 cities and towns.
Displaying a folding chair inscribed on its back with information about the program, Mr. D'Entremont said the cost of the program is modest, perhaps $100 for the chair itself. It is recommended that the chair be set off by an American flag on one side and the POW/MIA flag on the other. He said 50 cities and towns have already purchased the chairs.

The selectmen voted unanimously to approve Rolling Thunder's request after local Legion member Robert Lessard read biographical information about SSgt. William Smith, whose brother Robert and other family members were present MOnday night.
Commander Donald Triner of the American Legion said the Legion will pay for Middleboro's chair.................(Photo/compiled by Historian Bob Lessard.)