PRYOR, Okla. — Today, our nation remembers veterans held captive and those who remain missing.
Thousands never made it home.
Quinton Ogden is one who made it home.
He was in the military for 30 years, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force.
Ogden’s plane was gunned down and exploded near an island in France, a day after D-Day.
German soldiers took him for 10 months.
He was confined to one room, and says there was little to eat.
“Everything reminds you that you’d like to have food.”
Ogden says he lost about 70 pounds during his time as a prisoner.
To pass the time and get his mind off hunger he says he and the other prisoners played a game.
Dottie Ogden, his wife, says "Someone made a deck of cards out of something, and they played bridge all day long.”
It’s a card game he now plays with his family.
Two more things Ogden says he brought back home: patience and knowing how to survive.
National POW/MIA Recognition Day is an observance to remember the service of veterans who were taken prisoner or remain missing. It is traditionally observed on the third Friday in September, each year.
The American Legion calculates more than 82,000 Americans remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf War and other conflicts.
