Remembering Maureen Dunn: Advocate For Families Of POWs

Maureen Dunn, of Randloph, was one of the founders of the "National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia". She was a relentless advocate for POWs, MIAs, and their families.

Maureen studied to be a hair stylist. In 1968, her life turned in an unimaginable direction when her husband, Lieutenant Joseph Patrick Dunn was shot down over the South China Sea. The Pentagon was never able to tell her what happened to her husband and in 1974 bearing the emptiness and pain so familiar to families of missing soldiers, Dunn testified before the US Senate, saying: "Our problem has been Watergated, Agnewed, Richardsoned, Energy-crisised, and Mideast-ed practically out of existence."

Dunn continued advocating for families for 45 years. Last Friday, she passed away after a struggle with cancer. She was 72.

Joseph Dunn II, son of Maureen and Joseph Dunn.

Boston Globe "Silent at first, but not for long, Maureen Dunn stepped into a spotlight she would never have sought after she learned in 1968 that her husband was shot down over the South China Sea on Valentine’s Day as he piloted an unarmed Navy jet during the Vietnam War."