This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Every year, there are fewer prisoners of war to honor, but nearly two dozen gathered with their families Friday to remember their own sacrifices and those of fellow soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen who did not come home.
Utah is home to an estimated 50 former POWs, 80 percent of them from World War II.
All but a handful of those who attended a luncheon hosted by the Department of Veterans Affairs were POWs during World War II; the others served in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
That stands to reason, said Richard Burt of Centerville, who was held captive by the Germans for six months in 1945.
"Most people don't understand the magnitude of World War II," he said Friday. "Over 16.5 million men and women were in uniform."
Burt, originally from Bear River City, was just 19 when he enlisted. He was a radio operator on a B-24 that had just dropped its bombs when the Germans shot out an engine. The crippled craft tried to return to Italy, but the crew had to bail out over what is now Croatia when a second engine failed.
Taken to Germany then Poland, the prisoners were forced to march in the dead of winter for hundreds of miles back to and through Germany. They ate only what they could scrounge and steal from farms along the way: potatoes, grain, sugar beets, kohlrabi.
Each man had a blanket and if they were lucky enough to be in a forest, they could break branches to lay on the snow for a bed. They would buddy up, using one blanket below and one above.
"We lost an awful lot. I lost two companions," Burt, now 87, said.
Finally, in early May, British soldiers liberated them, and three days later the war ended, Burt said.
Burt was sick with dysentery and had to be hospitalized in France before returning home to Utah. He later joined the California National Guard and served a tour in Vietnam.
One of the three Vietnam POWs honored Friday, Dave Groves, of West Jordan, was a Green Beret in the Army's 5th Special Forces when his unit was ambushed while on patrol. He was the only survivor, shot in his upper leg and captured by the North Vietnamese.
He spent six months in a prison camp before he and other American servicemen escaped. "We lived in the jungle for two weeks. We ate off the land," Groves recalled Friday.
Eventually, they came across a Marine patrol and were rescued. Groves, who had grown up in Santa Fe, N.M., served four more years in the Army before returning to civilian life. He later moved to Utah and worked many years for the West Jordan street department.
An honor guard from Hill Air Force Base carried out a "missing man" ceremony at the gathering for those who did not make it home. The airmen left hats from each of the military branches at a lone table with a single red rose and a candle. A slice of lemon on a saucer symbolized their bitter fate; salt represented the tears of the lost and their families.
"Remember, until the day they come home," said James Andrews of the VA regional office, the master of ceremonies. "Remember."