POW/MIA bracelets help to remember, honor service members
by Master Sgt. Valerie D. Foster
11th Wing Command Post
Have you ever wondered how the POW/MIA bracelets came about? All of us have seen them. Thousands of people wear them each and every day and have vowed not to remove them until the person listed has been accounted for.
As of this writing, 1,815 POW/MIAs are listed. Many of our service men and women were returning from Vietnam, and a lot of them were left behind with their status unknown.
As you can imagine, families, loved ones and friends were devastated. They didn't have a clue who to contact or where to get information. The only information families and the public received came from infrequent POW pictures in news reports and in magazines, such as "Life" and "Look," which put the POW/MIAs pictures on their covers.
Returning service members from Vietnam didn't forget the comrades and friends they had left behind. To honor them, they wore Montagnard bracelets. Those bracelets served as a reminder of the suffering of the war and the human cost.
The families were not organized and many were not able to contact other families to offer support or vent.
During this time, Voices in a Vital America, a student organization opposed to war, began distributing a plain metal bracelet. The organizers met with returning veteran Bob Dorhan with an idea to increase public awareness with the bracelet. The group had no income or public backing, so the first bracelets were made from brass and copper, which had been donated. VIVA originally believed only other students would want to wear the bracelet, but they were mistaken. Many people became interested in the bracelet. In fact, many people with close ties to the military insisted on wearing a bracelet. Others wore them to support grieving families and let the service members know they were not forgotten even if they were thousands of miles away. The bracelets were a peaceful way to bring about public awareness of what was going on in Vietnam.
After attending a League of Families conference in Washington, VIVA became aware the families wanted "their guy's" name on the bracelets for distribution.
The bracelets were launched on Veterans Day in 1970, and public interest was huge. The person wearing the bracelet wore it with the promise of not taking it off until the member named on the bracelet returned or their status was known. The bracelets continued to sell, and VIVA ensured the public was kept aware of the human toll of Vietnam. More than five million bracelets were sold.
Three years after Operation Homecoming, in 1976, the public had grown war weary and wanted to believe everyone had returned or had been accounted for. VIVA closed its doors that year.
But flash forward to 2005 and people are still buying and wearing POW/MIA bracelets.
The plain bracelet, which started the movement, has been joined by a variety of colors and styles.
No matter what the style or type of bracelet, the message is still the same: POW/MIAs are not forgotten!
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