Members of Rolling Thunder Kentucky Chapter 2 from Glasgow and Chapter 3 from Bowling Green unveil the honorary POW/MIA seat in E.A. Diddle Arena during a Western Kentucky Women's basketball game, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014, in Bowling Green, Ky. (Alex Slitz/Daily News)

For more than 50 years, Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Ross of Cave City couldn’t bring himself to talk about the three years he spent as a prisoner of war in North Korea.

Now, he wants to do everything he can to raise awareness about imprisoned or missing service members whose stories remain untold. 

“There’s no one else to speak for those people,” he said. 

A new seat in E.A. Diddle Arena, which Ross helped unveil last week, honors POWs and MIAs.

To Ross, the chair is a symbol of those who are still missing. “They were friends of mine. They were people that I depended on, and now they’re missing,” he said. 

Ross joined the Army in 1947 and was captured in North Korea by Chinese forces in November 1950. He made it out three years later, but many of his comrades never did.

“I was one of the survivors, and many of my friends are still missing,” he said. “I feel it’s really a duty of mine to keep their memory alive. They’re like family to me.” 

Western Kentucky University athletics partnered with local Rolling Thunder chapters to install the POW/MIA seat, located at the top of section 115 below the American flag. 

“We really do a lot with our military,” said Lindsay Boyden, WKU’s associate athletic director for marketing. “We just felt like it was a great mission we wanted to be a part of.”

Rolling Thunder chapters across the nation are working to install POW/MIA seats in prominent locations in their communities, said Jimmie Dixon, president of Rolling Thunder Kentucky chapter 2 in Glasgow.

“A lot of times, when the war’s over, we tend to forget about them, but this chair is a reminder that some people are still missing,” he said.

The chair will remain empty in honor of POWs and MIAs.

“No one actually sits there,” said Michael Schroeder, assistant athletic director for communications. “It just stays open as a reminder of people who aren’t there.” 

WKU is the first university in Kentucky to install a POW/MIA seat, and the athletics department plans to put another one in Houchens-Smith Stadium in time for the Nov. 15 football game against Army, Dixon said. Diddle Arena seemed like a good place to put the chair because it will be seen by a large number of people.

“When they look at the scoreboard, they’re going to see that chair,” he said. “It just clicks in their mind, ‘Hey, we still have people missing.’ ”

Since World War II, about 83,000 service members are unaccounted for, and it’s painful for their loved ones to not know what happened to them, Dixon said. 

 “You never have closure until you have something concrete,” he said. “They live in that turmoil their entire life not knowing.”

— Follow faith/general assignments reporter Laurel Wilson on Twitter at twitter.com/FaithinBG or visit bgdailynews.com.

Sidebar

A California woman discovered she has a POW/MIA bracelet engraved with the name of Brig. Gen. Kenneth Fleenor, a Bowling Green native who is in Western Kentucky University’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni. 

Dorothy Trevena of Simi Valley, Ca., received the bracelet in the late 1960s or early 1970s, when bracelets with names of POWs and MIAs were distributed as a way to draw attention to the prisoners and missing during the Vietnam War. 

“I’ve held on to mine this whole time,” Trevena said.

She remembered she had the bracelet when she saw a Facebook post recently where someone shared a picture of a POW/MIA bracelet. The bracelet has Fleenor’s name and the date he was taken prisoner: Dec. 17, 1967. Trevena looked up Fleenor online and saw he made it home and had an interesting career before he died in 2010. She’s hoping to send the bracelet to Fleenor’s family if she can locate them.

“I feel bad that I didn’t think to give it back to him when he was alive,” she said.

— Anyone with information about how to get in touch with Fleenor’s family may contact Wilson at the Daily News at 270-783-3240.