Home Fires Burn for POWs/MIAs
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
Summary - In 1970, three college students began
making bracelets to remember servicemen. Thirty years later, U.S.
soldiers are still missing and Americans continue to wear the bracelets.
It was on June 30, 1967, while carrying out his
179th bombing mission over Southeast Asia, that 27-year-old Navy pilot Mike
McGrath's A4C Skyhawk was hit by antiaircraft artillery just south
of Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. With no time to radio his
location, McGrath ejected from his crippled aircraft and landed in a
kind of hell few have known.
Within moments of slamming into the dense North
Vietnamese jungle, the enemy was pulling at McGrath's badly broken body,
stripping him of his clothing and binding his hands and feet with jungle
twine. Caged like an animal and in excruciating pain, the American pilot
was paraded through
villages where locals were encouraged to poke and strike him with
sticks. Upon arrival at the Hoa Lo prison - known to prisoners of war,
or POWs, as the "Hanoi Hilton" - McGrath was tortured for 15
days, without medical care for his broken back and arm.
McGrath survived his injuries as well as the
beatings, torture and starvation he and hundreds of other POWs were
subjected to at the hands of their North Vietnamese captors. Not until
February 1973, nearly six years after his capture, were he and his
fellow POWs repatriated. It only was then that McGrath became aware of
efforts that had been undertaken on behalf of the POWs and those listed
as missing in action, or MIA. Twenty-seven years from the date of his
release, McGrath still is receiving by hand and through the mail well-
worn aluminum and copper bracelets that bear his name. His was just one
of thousands of names engraved on such bracelets worn by nearly 5
million Americans determined that the POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia
would not be forgotten.
McGrath tells Insight that "most of us
were optimistic about being released. We knew it was a matter of time
and we had to hang in there. We never lost faith in our country. When we
got home and learned about the bracelets we were very appreciative and
very humbled that such a big program had been undertaken for us."
Carol Bates Brown, the 21-year-old college
student who with two other students and a college adviser began the
bracelet program in 1970, had wanted to draw public attention to the
prisoners and those missing in Vietnam. They had been introduced by TV
personality Robert Dornan (later elected to Congress) to the wives of
three missing pilots. At the time, Dornan wore a circular metal bracelet
he had obtained in Vietnam from hill tribesmen. The students thought
such bracelets might be a positive way to remember POWs and MIAs.
Soon Brown was national chairwoman of the
POW/MIA Bracelet Campaign for Voices in Vital America, or VIVA, a Los
Angeles-based student organization that would produce and distribute the
bracelets. "The problem," says Brown, "was that we were
students and we had no money. Our adviser, Gloria Coppin, was able to
locate a small engraving shop in Santa Monica, Calif., that agreed to
make 10 sample bracelets to help us raise funds. Both Ross Perot and
Howard Hughes were approached about lending us money to get started, but
neither came through and Coppin's
husband ended up donating enough brass and copper to make 1,200
bracelets. Jack Zeider ** , an engraver in Santa Monica, agreed to make the
bracelets and let us pay him after we sold them. I don't think he
thought he would see any money for his work, but he believed in our
cause and did the job for us anyway."
To the surprise of Brown and the others, not
only did the bracelets sell, they became hugely popular and remain so
today.
The initial cost of manufacturing the
bracelets, engraved with just the serviceman's name, rank and date of
capture/date missing, was 75 cents. The price of a student admission to
the local movie theater at the time was $2.50. Brown considered this a
fair price for the nickel-plated bracelet but increased the price to $3
for the "adult" copper bracelet. The program was announced on
Veterans Day 1970 and soon afterward VIVA was receiving as many as
12,000 orders per day.
The group forged a close alliance with
relatives of the missing men, including the newly formed National League
of Families, a nonprofit organization composed of the wives, children,
parents and other close relatives of Americans who were listed as POWs,
MIAs, killed in action/body not recovered and repatriated POWs. "We
weren't officially connected to the league, but we worked closely with
them and the money from the bracelets was poured back into the POW/MIA
issue," says Brown.
VIVA made enough money from the bracelet
program to produce other items to encourage awareness of the POW/MIA
issue, including bumper stickers, buttons, brochures, matchbooks and
newspaper ads. Its leaders even became members of the American Society
of Composers, Authors and Publishers recording union to make a record
about the POW/ MIA issue.
According to Brown, who dropped out of college
to work full time on the bracelet program, "Coppin was adamant that
we not have a highly paid professional staff. The highest salary was
$15,000 per year, and administrative costs had to be kept below 20
percent of the income. Eventually we did hire a CPA. He was the
'grown-up' and provided good sense about the business end of it."
By 1975 nearly $10 million had been raised from
the sale of the bracelets and, though VIVA closed its doors in 1976,
hundreds of thousands of bracelets continue to be sold
by veterans organizations,
each engraved with the name of one of the remaining 2,031 servicemen
still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia. No records were kept by VIVA
concerning the number of bracelets that were distributed for each
serviceman. "We were just lucky if we could fill all the orders
that were coming in and respond to the letters from people who wanted to
write to their serviceman's relatives," says Brown. But numbers
given by POWs, such as McGrath, provide a pretty good idea.
To date, McGrath has received more than 700
returned bracelets and has responded to most. "They keep
coming," he says. "Just last week I received another bracelet
from a man who for 27 years had been trying to find out what happened to
me. Finally, he found my name and address on the Internet and sent me
the bracelet with a letter. Such letters say pretty much the same thing.
The most recent is a good example: "'It is an honor to be
writing to you. I have searched for quite some time trying to locate
you. I wanted to return your original POW bracelet that my deceased wife
wore until your repatriation. I finally located you by browsing the
POW/MIA Webpages. Thank you for the work you are doing to keep the
memory of our brothers alive.'
"What's important," says McGrath,
"is that those who wore these bracelets believe it made a
difference. Because they're able to return the bracelet, it's a kind of
closure for them. It's very emotional. They built a bond with their
POW/MIA and returning the bracelet is a healing process for them, too.
POWs are appreciative of the bracelets, of course, and sometimes the
contacts have built into friendships that lasted for years." Ann
Mills Griffith, executive director of the National League of Families,
or NLF, sees the bracelets as "a symbol of the ongoing commitment
to account for those who served our nation." She tells Insight,
"The bracelets still make a difference because they show
that people want answers; they still want accountability."
Griffith is referring to the cases of POWs and
MIAs who still are unaccounted for in Vietnam. At the end of the war,
there were 2,583 American prisoners missing in action or killed in
action/body not
recovered about whose whereabouts the Communists claimed to know
nothing. By December 1999, 2,031 Americans still are missing and
unaccounted for, with more than 90 percent of them in Vietnam or in
areas of Laos and Cambodia where Vietnamese forces operated during the
war.
Since the end of the war, the NLF's priority
has been to resolve the live-prisoner question. During the years, says
an NLF spokesman, "official intelligence has indicated that
Americans known to have been alive in captivity in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia were not returned at the end of the war and, as a matter of
policy, the government does not rule out the possibility that American
POWs could still be alive."
Despite alleged bilateral cooperation between
the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the NLF
continues to have to push for case-specific records on U.S. loss
incidents in Laos and Cambodia. And Vietnam still refuses to respond to
requests for records of the missing men. "I can paper my walls with
commitments that have been made and broken over the years," says
Griffith. "I've been involved in this issue for 33 years; I can
tell you the family members don't have the luxury of just believing what
is said. We need accountability and believe that normalization of
relations with Vietnam should be pursued in a policy of
reciprocity."
Further complicating the POW/ MIA issue are the
money problems of the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in
Hawaii, which is responsible for recovery and identification of
repatriated remains. "The president says it is a matter of the
nation's highest priority, yet they are not adequately funding the lab
charged with carrying out the work," says Griffith. "If we're
going to send people to recover and identify those who served our
country you have to have people to do it, and that takes money."
Considering that the war in Southeast Asia cost
taxpayers more than $150 billion and nearly 60,000 American lives, $12
million to fund the laboratory to identify the remains of U.S.
servicemen who died in this country's longest war seems to many to be a
mere drop in the budget bucket. "As a measure of the U.S.
commitment to stand behind those who served, an increase of $10 million
would really go a long way and further enable the lab to carry out their
congressionally mandated mission," Griffith says.
Griffith has spent most of her adult life
working on the POW/MIA issue, which began for her when her brother, Navy
Cmdr. James Mills, was listed as MIA on Sept. 21, 1966. He has yet
to be accounted for, while Griffith faithfully wears his bracelet.
"For the first seven years," she recalls, "I didn't think
that as executive director of the league I should wear my brother's
bracelet - that it might seem inappropriate or self-serving to some - so
I wore a bracelet engraved with another name."
Brown wore a bracelet honoring Navy pilot Paul
Worrell, who had been listed as missing in action in 1966. Only in 1985,
when Worrell's remains were repatriated to the United States, did she
remove the
bracelet from her wrist for the last time. And although she is aware of
the custom of returning these bracelets to the serviceman or his family,
Brown says she never felt comfortable doing so for fear of how it might
affect them. During the years, however, she came to know the Worrells
and still stays in touch with Paul's mother.
While sharing his own experience as a captive
of the North Vietnamese, McGrath recalled a unique commissioning
ceremony that occurred among the prisoners at the Hanoi Hilton involving
a man whose name is well known to this reporter. As a teen-ager, I wore
the bracelet of T/Sgt. Arthur Neil Black,
shot down on Sept. 20, 1966, and I long have been aware that he was
among the POWs returned in 1973. Beyond that, nothing. According to
McGrath, "Neil was across the hall from me
at the Hanoi Hilton. He wasn't an officer, but still he was getting the
same treatment as the rest of us - beatings and torture. We all were so
impressed with the way Neil handled himself that the officers gave him a
battlefield commission in prison. When he was released, the Air Force
honored our decision and upheld the commission. Black remained in the
Air Force, became a pilot and retired with the rank of major."
When this reporter removed Neil Black's
bracelet from her wrist in 1973, she also removed the bracelet of WO2
Dennis Omelia, who had been listed as MIA since January 1971.
Omelia's fate still is unknown. Twenty-seven years later, however, there
is again a well- worn metal bracelet bearing his name on my wrist - for
the duration. It may not make a difference, but as McGrath pointed out,
"What matters is that we believe it does."
When the prisoners of war were repatriated to
the United States from North Vietnam in 1973 during Operation
Homecoming, there was great public interest about how their years in
captivity may have affected them. The following numbers speak for
themselves:
* Seven POWs were awarded the Medal of Honor:
Vice Adm. Jim Stockdale, U.S. Navy;
Col. Bud Day, U.S. Air Force;
Col. Don Cook (posthumously), U.S. Marine
Corps;
and Capt. Lance Sijan (posthumously), U.S.
Air Force - all for action above and beyond the call of duty as POWs.
Col. Leo Thorsness, U.S. Air Force;
Sgt. Maj. Jon Cavaiani, U.S. Army;
and Sgt. William Port, U.S. Army - all for
heroism prior to being captured.
* 137 Vietnam-era POWs are graduates of one of
the four military academies.
* 80 percent of the POWs who were repatriated
remained in the military and retired with a minimum of 20 years service.
* 24 Vietnam-era POWs were promoted to flag
rank.
* 16 POWs have held other public offices with
distinction, including:
Everett Alvarez, former deputy director of
the Peace Corps and former deputy administrator of the Veterans
Administration.
Lawrence Chesley, former Arizona state
senator.
Thomas Collins, former undersecretary of
labor.
Jeremiah Denton, former U.S.senator.
John Downey, Connecticut Superior Court
judge.
Mark Gartley, former Maine secretary of
state.
Samuel Johnson, U.S. representative.
Joseph Kernan, governor of Indiana.
John McCain, U.S. senator, former U.S.
representative, currently a candidate for the GOP nomination for
president.
Douglas Peterson, ambassador to Vietnam
and former U.S. representative.
John Pritchford, former mayor of Natchez,
Miss.
Ben Purcell, former Georgia state
representative.
Orson Swindle, federal trade commissioner
and former assistant secretary of commerce.
Leo Thorsness, former Washington state
senator.
James Warner, former senior White House
domestic-policy adviser.
Ronald Webb, former assistant secretary of
the Federal Aviation Administration.
** Jack Zeider, was the owner of Midway Stamping and Die Works
in Santa Monica, California. In order to produce enough of these
bracelets, on a minimal budget, Jack ran crews 24-hours a day.
He and Shirley Zeider, my sister-in-law, ran the day crew and
my husband Richard Zeider, a college student at the time, ran the night
crew. While Jack manufactured the bracelets his brother, Bob
Zeider, did the engraving and my mother-in-law, Ruth Zeider, kept
the books. It was truly a family effort and the only
affordable way the bracelets could be produced for VIVA. For
a period of time the Zeiders were producing 50,000 bracelets
a day.
Dr. Richard & Janet Zeider |
