Somerville to Dedicate POW-MIA Chair

Somerville, on Friday, will join Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park, TD Garden, the State House and 42 towns and cities across the state by dedicating a special POW-MIA chair at City Hall.

Jay Weaver, Somerville's director of veterans services, said the chair is "a spin-off of a military tradition."

In "any military dining facility, anywhere in the world"—even in the small mess tent in Afghanistan where Weaver served—there's always a place setting put aside for service members who are missing in action or prisoners of war, he said.

The empty chair shows that MIA service members and POWs "are in our thoughts, even though they can't be present," he explained.

Since World War II, there have been about 142,000 prisoners of war, and around 83,000 service members are considered missing in action, Weaver said.

Operation Rolling Thunder, a group of motorcycle riding veterans, started a movement to install POW-MIA chairs in cities, towns and other places, he said.

Somerville will dedicate its chair at a ceremony at 12 p.m. The chair will be placed outside the aldermanic chambers, on the second floor of City Hall. It will have an American flag, a POW-MIA flag and a plaque with a quote from John F. Kennedy.

"It's a very basic chair, just an ordinary chair," Weaver said. In addition to the flags and plaque, it will be surrounded my movie-style ropes, to make sure no one sits on it.

Weaver said he wasn't sure how many POWs and MIA service members come from Somerville, though he said it was "several."

"The exact number is hard to pin down," he said.

The public is invited to Friday's ceremony.