BVA acknowledges with solemnity National POW/MIA Recognition Day today, September 19. The special recognition was established in 1979 through a proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter. Since then, each subsequent President of the United States has issued an annual proclamation commemorating the third Friday in September as National POW/MIA Recognition Day, honoring service members who are either in captivity or unaccounted for.
In 1990, Congress designated the POW/MIA flag as “the symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing, and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.” The Navy Memorial flies the POW/MIA flag 24-hours-a-day, every day of the year.
A national-level ceremony with members of each branch of military service and high-ranking officials is held on every National POW/MIA Recognition Day, most often at the Pentagon. Because of the large numbers, the point of emphasis as always been those held captive or missing in action in Vietnam. Other observances are being held across the country on military installations, war memorials, museums, ships at sea, state capitol buildings, schools, and VA facilities.
The National League of Families’ POW/MIA flag symbolizes the U.S. resolve to never forget Prisoners of War or those who served their country in conflicts and who are still missing. Flag designer Newt Heisley drew a silhouette of a young man based on his son, who was medically discharged from the military. As he looked at his son’s gaunt features, he imagined what life was like for those behind barbed wire fences on foreign soil and sketched the profile of his son as the new design was created in his mind.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency indicates that more than 81,500 Americans remain missing from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf War, and other conflicts.
The U.S. Navy also hosts a wreath-laying ceremony annually on National POW/MIA Recognition Day at the Navy Memorial in Washington, DC.
