Since 2023, with the support of Rolling Thunder Michigan Chapter 4, and Chapter 3 of the Forgotten Eagles of Michigan, Doug Pickel and Calvin Murphy, the team behind Plaques of Honor, has organized an annual ceremony commemorating POW/MIA National Recognition Day at the Michigan Vietnam War Memorial in Island Park, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. This initiative grew out of a commemoration in Remus, Michigan which honored Wilmer Norman, a POW during the Korean War. To view that first ceremony in 2022, click here.

In 2023, the first The Island Park ceremony honored another Korean War POW, Robert Hesselink, who had also been remembered at the 2022 Remus commemoration (see flyer below).

The Island Park Ceremony thus carries forward a legacy rooted in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars: the Korean War, through its connection to the Remus commemoration, and the Vietnam Warm, as Island Park is home to the Michigan Vietnam Memorial, not to mention that the POW/MIA issue emerged because of the agitation of families (chiefly wives of pilots) during the Vietnam War.
To learn more about Wilmer Norman and Robert Hesslink, visit this "Interactive Story Map" created by former Central Michigan University student Noah Alsup ('25) for the "pop up course" offered by Central Michigan University's Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion. Titled "The Ethics of Memory," the course is designed and taught Dr. Hope Elizabeth May, who was inspired to create the course after attending the first ceremony in Island Park in 2023. The course has also been offered in 2025.

Assembled below is an archive of past commemorations and the individuals and families honored at Island Park since 2023.

For photos from the 2024 Ceremony, click here.
For photos (and video) from the 2023 Ceremony, click here