Wildwood Dedicates POW Chair of Honor

WILDWOOD – From now on, there will always be an empty seat at Wildwood events and meetings.
The empty seat is a Prisoner of War (POW) Chair of Honor dedicated to the more than 82,000 American service members who were prisoners of war or who are missing in action (MIA).
“There’s a lot of men and women who are not sitting in this room – I think somewhere they’re up above us watching – but they aren’t in here enjoying the liberties that they fought for,” said Mayor Ernie Troiano. “What we have here is just a small token of our appreciation.”
On May 16, the City of Wildwood unveiled a leather-upholstered Bergere armchair, adorned with a golden POW-MIA emblem, that will be a permanent fixture in City Hall. The chair is surrounded by rope and perched upon a wooden platform on the south side of the Commissioners’ meeting room.
“I don’t have to tell the veterans what this means because they know,” Troiano said. “They know what this chair represents. They know what it means to the veterans’ community.”
The city also presented a POW-MIA folding chair which Troiano said will be onstage at every Wildwood event outside City Hall.
The POW Chair of Honor is one of Rolling Thunder’s programs to support the advocacy group’s “main mission by bringing daily reminders of the POW-MIA issue to cities and towns, big and small, across the nation,” according to Rolling Thunder’s website.
POW Chairs of Honor have been placed at sports arenas, stadiums, state capitols and town halls throughout the country, according to local Rolling Thunder member Patrick Hughes.
Wildwood city officials wanted their own Chairs of Honor after Hughes approached them with the idea earlier this year.
“We were so impressed with Mr. Hughes and his presentation that we jumped right on board,” Troiano said.
Hughes said the program started six years ago when a Rolling Thunder member noticed a seat that was purposefully left vacant at the NASCAR track in Bristol, Tenn.
That member, Joe D’Entremont, wanted to bring that memorialization to a scale that would help all Americans think of the service members who never came home.
“Even though so many service members may never be coming back, their families are still here,” Hughes said. “Their families still wait, so this means everything.”
One of the veterans in attendance was Vincent Pale, 96, of Lower Township. He was in a German POW camp during World War II. Pale was captured in 1944, at age 21, after his aircraft was shot down. He parachuted to safety and was the only survivor of a crew of eight.
Pale led the Pledge of Allegiance at the ceremony.
The chairs were dedicated to Wildwood veterans who never returned from war:
* Air Force Pilot Dyke Spilman, lost in North Vietnam in 1966, aged 25.
* Air Force Capt. Bernard L. Pearson, lost in Korea in 1950, aged 25. 
* Luciano Tassoni of the Army, lost in World War I in 1918.
The names of Wildwood POW-MIAs were researched by William “Bill” Davenport of the Wildwood chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America. Davenport is researching the possibility of other POW-MIAs from Wildwood.
Troiano also introduced Jaxon Grauel, a Wildwood Crest Memorial School student who made signs for the city reserving parking spots for Purple Heart recipients. Troiano said the signs would be placed at Fox Park, the American Legion and other places throughout the city.
“This will always be your home,” Troiano told veterans in attendance. “You will never go without in the City of Wildwood.”
To contact Taylor Henry, email thenry@cmcherald.com.