JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Five and a half years, that\u2019s how long Ted Gostas spent as a prisoner of war, captured in Vietnam nearly 60 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cKicked in the guts, beat on the head, hungman strung by his arms,\u201d Domask recounted Saturday of Gostas\u2019s experience while captured. \u201cYou talk about torture, threatened every day, \u2018you will not wake up tomorrow. You will not make up tomorrow, this is your last day, say your prayers.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n While Domask now works to keep Gostas\u2019s memory alive every day through his art, Gostas is just one of many prisoners of war or military service men and women previously or currently missing in action that were honored Saturday morning. The National POW\/MIA Memorial and Museum, located at Cecil Commerce Center, held a special day of remembrance.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are over 80,000 missing in action since World War Two to now,\u201d explained the museum\u2019s executive director Ed Turner on Saturday. \u201cThat is a big part of what our mission here is at the National POW\/MIA Memorial. This memorial will recognize all those POWs, and it was about 140,000 of those as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, the hope is that with each and every event like Saturday\u2019s, it can not only serve to honor the memory of prisoners of war like Gostas, but continue the push in the search for those still missing in action.<\/p>\n \u201cA big part of it is to let people know that we are still looking,\u201d Turner added. \u201cWe\u2019re still looking for the unaccounted for … and that\u2019s a story that we need to tell as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The museum is also looking now to gain national recognition as the national memorial for POWs and soldiers missing in action, with HR-3057<\/a>. The legislation would allow the site to fundraise for the expansion of its current memorial and exhibit space.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Five and a half years, that\u2019s how long Ted Gostas spent as a prisoner of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-242081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-northeast-florida","17":"tag-southeast-georgia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-wfox","25":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115238146261937029","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}