POW-MIA rally seeks to help bring soldiers back home

Hundreds of motorcycle riders descended on Pocatello over the weekend for the annual POW-MIA Awareness Rally.

Despite the constant motorcycle competitions and different events happening at the Bannock County Fairgrounds for the rally, organizers said the rally isn’t about the bikes.
It’s about getting fallen heroes home.

“We pack if full of fun, and the motorcycles is just a backdrop for us to raise the money,” POW-MIA Pocatello spokeswoman Mary Breshears said.

That money goes to organizations like the Joint POW-MIA Accounting Command.

The group goes to foreign battlefields, acting like archeologists in uncovering the remains of soldiers.

“The American people as well as their families deserve to know what had happened to them at the time. They deserve to know what the circumstances were, but ultimately they deserve that peace of mind to have that individual home,” SSgt. Matthew Plew said.

Organizers of the rally said awareness is needed, and many people just don’t think of it as a current issue.

“I think it’s so old that people have forgotten that we still have veterans, heroes, soldiers that still haven’t come home,” Pocatello POW-MIA Executive Director Kenneth Wright said

But some POWs are much more modern. Idaho’s own Bowe Bergdahl is a current prisoner of war in Afghanistan.

“We need to bring our boys home. They sign up to fight for our country, which they love, and they deserve to be brought home,” Breshears said.