This Week at DOW: Guard Making Memphis Safe, Tamping Down on Drug Traffickers, Department Remembers POW/MIA

Today is National POW/MIA Recognition Day, and at the Pentagon, the War Department remembered those warriors who left home to fight the nation's wars but who never came home.

"Today, [Secretary of War Pete Hegseth] hosted the Department of War's 2025 National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremony to honor those who were held captive and returned, as well as those who remain unaccounted for from past conflicts," said Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson during the department's Weekly Sitrep video. "We will forever remember the sacrifice of these warriors and their families."

Today, more than 80,000 service members remain unaccounted for from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War. The War Department's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency currently works hand in hand with some 46 different nations to locate still unaccounted-for service members and to bring them home. Hegseth said the nation will continue to search for those service members until they all come home.

"Our prisoners of war, those missing in action and their families, have borne the greatest sacrifices for our country that we can imagine," Hegseth said today on the Pentagon parade field. "We owe them an immeasurable debt. They gave the greatest possible sacrifice you could give on the altar of freedom. We will never leave them, and we will not forget them."

In early August, President Donald J. Trump declared a crime emergency in Washington and deployed the National Guard there to deal with crime and violence on the streets. Now the president aims to do something similar in Memphis, Tennessee.

"On Monday, President Trump, with Secretary Hegseth by his side in the Oval Office, declared the Tennessee National Guard will be sent to Memphis to help crack down on crime," Wilson said. "The department is ready to assist the White House and the Department of Homeland Security in any and every way possible to save our great American cities."

As part of a memorandum published Sept. 15, the president has tasked the secretary of war to ask the governor of Tennessee to make National Guard units available to support public safety and law enforcement operations in Memphis. The same memorandum also directs the secretary to coordinate with governors of other states to mobilize their National Guard personnel to provide support as well.

It won't be just the National Guard working to crack down on crime in Memphis. Other federal agencies, including the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, as well as the FBI, will be working together to get the violence and crime there under control. Hegseth said the War Department looks forward to being part of a team that accomplishes the president's goals in Memphis - in the same way it's been a partner in other efforts.

"From Day 1, the DOW ... has been proud to stand with our partners across the interagency, whether it's at the southwest border, whether it was LA - getting ahead of that - whether it's right here in Washington, D.C., where Secretary [Daniel ] Driscoll and the Army and the National Guard have taken the lead in helping across all of these great folks to secure the city - we are proud to be here, to stand strong alongside law enforcement," Hegseth said.

On the high seas this week, the War Department dealt another blow to the criminals who hope to bring deadly drugs into the United States.

"At President Trump's direction, U.S. military forces conducted another strike against confirmed narco-terrorists in the [U.S. Southern Command] area of responsibility," Wilson said.

According to the president, three narco-terrorists from Venezuela were killed in the strike, which occurred in international waters. The strike was undertaken by forces from Southcom.

"Narco-terrorists are enemies of the United States - actively bringing death to our shores," Hegseth said. "We will stop at nothing to defend our homeland and our citizens. We will track them, kill them and dismantle their networks throughout our hemisphere - at the times and places of our choosing."

In April, the Army held a competition to determine the best of the best Army Rangers. The two winners of that competition came to Washington this week to meet with the secretary of war.

"Secretary Hegseth hosted a pair of U.S. Army Rangers who won the 41st Annual David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition earlier this year to recognize their achievement and celebrate the warrior ethos they represent," Wilson said.

In his office at the Pentagon, Hegseth met with Army Capt. Kevin Moore and Capt. Griffin Hokanson. He congratulated the two junior officers, saying the same things needed to win the Ranger competition are also what's needed to win the nation's wars.

"I think how you prepare is indicative of how you might perform, and preparing by performing at the highest level is exactly what we would want everybody to aspire to," Hegseth told the Rangers.

And finally this week, the U.S. Air Force marked its 78th anniversary.

"In 1947, the Air Force separated from the U.S. Army to create its own branch of service," Wilson said. "The Air Force continues to fly, fight and win into the wild blue yonder, providing unmatched air dominance across the globe."