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BY FRED PETKE

Sun Reporter

New flags were hoisted over the Clark County Courthouse and the James Clark Judicial Annex Saturday morning to honor our nation’s soldiers who are missing in action.

Members of Rolling Thunder Kentucky Chapter 5 installed the flags, after requesting them from the Clark County Fiscal Court last year.

“A while back, I noticed the post office has a POW flag,” Rolling Thunder board member and Winchester resident Larry Hall said. “It has to. That’s federal.”

There were no others flying over public buildings in Winchester, so Hall thought he’d ask the county for permission.

“I feel it’s the least we could do,” Clark County Judge-Executive Chris Pace said. “It’s long overdue.”

Hall said there are approximately 1,306 Kentucky veterans who are unaccounted from the nation’s wars, including 1,107 from World War II, 186 from Korea, 3 from the Cold War and 14 from Vietnam.

Clark County’s four MIA veterans are:

• George Savage Brooks Jr., U.S. Navy lieutenant junior grade on the USS Pompano, reported missing Sept. 17, 1943 near Hanshu, Japan.

• John D. King, seaman apprentice on the USS Vincennes, reported missing Aug. 9, 1942 off Solomon Island in the South Pacific Ocean.

• Chester Clay Rose, U.S. Navy petty officer first class on the USS Arizona, reported missing Dec. 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor.

• James Owen Lambert, U.S. Army second lieutenant, reported missing Oct. 2, 1952 in North Korea.

Hall said missing soldiers’ remains are still being recovered, identified and returned home. In the last three years, 11 Kentucky soldiers have been identified and 10 have been returned home.

Rolling Thunder, he said, provides escorts and attends funerals for veterans.

“We do this when these folks come home,” he said. “We make sure these guys are never forgotten.”