WASHINGTON 

The Pentagon on Friday marked National POW/MIA Recognition Day with a solemn tribute to tens of thousands of American service members who were held as prisoners of war or remain missing across global battlefields.

“We are here gathered to commemorate National POW/MIA Recognition Day. Today, we honor those who were held as prisoners of war and those still missing in action,” Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said at a ceremony.

The commemoration brought together veterans, defense officials, and families of the missing, honoring more than 81,000 US service members still unaccounted for from World War II through recent conflicts.

“There are nearly 81,000 MIA (missing in action) who never made it back home. World War II, Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf Wars. Many of them were prisoners of war as well,” Hegseth said.

“It’s our mission to return them to American soil and provide a final resting place here at home for the heroes who fought for their country.”

Hegseth announced that the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) recently identified the remains of US Army Captain Willibald C. Bianchi.

“Captain Bianchi will be coming home to his family in New Ulm, Minnesota. We’ll finally be able to give him the burial he deserves 80 years later,” he said.

National POW/MIA Recognition Day was established in 1979 through a proclamation by then-President Jimmy Carter. Each president since has issued an annual proclamation marking the third Friday of September as a day of remembrance.