News-Info-Alerts

Re: POW-MIA Flag Designer Remembers

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: September 25, 2002

"Designer glad that POW flag lifts hopes
By Terri Cotten
Special to The Denver Post

Sunday, September 22, 2002 - COLORADO SPRINGS - As a World War II pilot, Newton Heisley covered vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean in frightening isolation. During those trips, he sometimes found himself imagining what it would be like to be shot down and taken prisoner.

He hoped he would not be forgotten.

Nearly 30 years later, Heisley drew on those memories when he was commissioned to design a flag that would rally support for the efforts of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.

He sketched three different designs, but the one chosen in 1971 now graces the banner that is the country's second-fastest-selling flag, behind only the Stars and Stripes. Beneath the emaciated silhouette of a man's head, the black and white POW/MIA flag bears the motto: "You Are Not Forgotten."

"I'm no hero," Heisley said Friday from his Colorado Springs home as people gathered throughout the country for National POW/MIA Recognition Day ceremonies, an annual event that began in 1979.

"I didn't do it for personal gain or acclaim. I did it for the men who were prisoners of war or missing in action. They're the real heroes."

Initially, Heisley's design was used to rally support for bringing home those held prisoner or missing in Vietnam. Today, it is used to fight for an accounting of more than 89,000 soldiers who remain missing from all wars since World War II.

Historians and flag experts call the proliferation of the POW/MIA flag unprecedented in the history of the United States and perhaps the world. The POW/MIA flag is the only flag that flies continuously in the U.S. Capitol's rotunda and is the only flag, besides Old Glory, that has flown above the White House.

It has flown at the Super Bowl, the New York Stock Exchange and at every post office nationwide. Heisley's drawing, which was never copyrighted, can be found on everything from ball caps to mugs.

The idea began when Mrs. Michael Hoff, the wife of a soldier missing in action and a member of the National League of Families, recognized the need for such a symbol. She sought help from flag manufacturers Annin & Co., which, in turn, went to Heisley, who was then creative director for a New Jersey advertising firm.

About the time his father began working on the project, Jeffrey Heisley, then 24, was struck with hepatitis during a Marine Corps training program. His shrunken condition inspired his father to draw him in silhouette for the flag.

David Winn, a retired Air Force general, was a prisoner of war at the "Hanoi Hilton" when Heisley sketched the POW/MIA symbol.

Winn, one of those who gathered for Friday's observance of National POW/MIA Recognition Day at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said he was shot down over North Vietnam in August 1968. He spent the first 22 months of captivity in isolation and shrunk from 175 pounds to less than 120 pounds, he said.

Two events gave him hope, he said. One was the Son Tay raid in November 1970, which prompted the Viet Cong to move all their prisoners to Hanoi and effectively ended solitary confinements.

The second came in 1971 at the Paris peace talks when the National League of Families flooded the North Vietnamese delegation with 3 million letters demanding the return of their loved ones. The prisoners found their conditions again improving.

Winn and his fellow prisoners were liberated in March 1973, but he said those who fly the POW/MIA flag today remain committed to a full accounting.

"It's impossible, the way we live such normal lives in this country, to conceive of a violent death," Winn said. "The average guy ought to be reminded that people are paying an awful price for his freedom."


Copyright 2002 The Denver Post"