Assembled below is an archive of past commemorations and the individuals and families honored at Island Park since 2023.
For photos from the 2025 Ceremony, click here. Video from the 2025 ceremony available above.
For photos from the 2024 Ceremony, click here.
For photos (and video) from the 2023 Ceremony, click here
All programs designed by Diana Green.
2026 Plaques Honoring:
1. William Walter
(Civil War)
2. Donald McClure
(WW II)
3. Lyle Taylor
(WW II)
4. Kenneth Cunningham
(WW II)
5. Robert Fletcher
(Korean War)
2025 Plaques Honoring:
1. Captain Marty Massucci
(Vietnam War)
2. Cpl.Gordon McArthy
(Korean War)
3. John Voshel
(Vietnam War)
4. Pfc. John Shelemba
(Korean War)
5. Sgt. Robert Hayhurst
(Vietnam War POW/MIA)
2024 Plaques Honoring:
1. Roland Robert Pineau
(Vietnam POW/MIA)
2. Edward Wentworth
(Korean War Purple Heart)
3. Byron Fouty
(Iraq War POW/MIA)
4. Thomas Smith
(Korean War POW/MIA)
2023 Plaques Honoring:
1. Sgt. Robert Hesselink
(POW for 33 months in Korea)
2. CPL Dale Williams
(POW for 32 months in Korea)
3. PVT Wilmur Norman (video of PVT Norman's 2022 Honor ceremony)
(POW for 18 months in Korea)
4. SPEC 4 Arthur Wright
(MIA since 1967 and still listed as MIA Vietnam)
Since 2023, with the support of Rolling Thunder Michigan Chapter 4, and Chapter 3 of the Forgotten Eagles of Michigan, Doug Pickel and the late Calvin Murphy (1947-2026), 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 (School Section Lake) 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).
With Calvin's passing in August 2026, the 2026 was the first to occur without Calvin's fuller involvement, although he will always be involved and serve as an inspiration. Indeed, the 2022 events which Calvin spearheaded have, thanks to Doug Pickel's passion and resolve, blossomed into a POW/MIA memorial project that honors POW/MIA from all wars. This Memorial will be installed in Island Park, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. To learn more about that project, click here.
The Island Park Ceremony 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 War, as Island Park is home to the Michigan Vietnam Memorial. Further, the POW/MIA issue emerged because of the agitation of families (chiefly wives of pilots) during the Vietnam War, the stark black and white flag an enduring symbol of their movement.
To learn more about Wilmer Norman 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 was designed and taught Dr. Hope Elizabeth May in 2024-2025, who was inspired to create the course after attending the first ceremony in Island Park in 2023.
