POW

We are the P.O.W M.I.A
Sent to do our goverments bidding
We are fit ready able and and wiling
Sent to fight a war
For the country we adore
We are lost but not for gotten

We are the POW MIA
Fighting for the land of the free
The home of the brave
We might be slaves
But proud we will always be

We are the P.O.W M.I.A
We stand tall in our prisons we face
Never shall we fall
Fighting for our lost brothers at arms
Together, all for one one for all

We are the P.O.W M.I.A
Never shall our memory fade
For we will all together stand
Glorious one day
Crawling from our cells
We are heaven bound
For have already been through hell

We are the P.O.W M.I.A

Anonymous

So many fates are left unknown
And so many rumors that abound
So many families ask the question
“When will, the answers be found?”

So many years have come and gone
Sometimes, hope is hard to keep
There’s some who feel there’s none
And in some, it’s buried deep.

The pain, is in not knowing
How, to put loved ones’ to rest
When there is no way to prove
They have passed, the final test.

But, no matter what the answers
We can’t let this cause alone
Until, each and every one of them
Is found, and brought back home

                     by
            Del “Abe” Jones
    The National Alliance of Families

"I Am The Unknown Soldier"

I am the unknown soldier
Some call me M.I.A.
Some say I can't go home again
Some say I chose to stay
I am the uknown soldier
who you refuse to know
A brother and a friend of yours
Who left so long ago
Some call me P.O.W.
The one they left behind
I am the unknown soldier
The one they never tried to find
I'm the one they never tried to find

I'm a farmer from Missouri
The soldier from St. Paul
I was the hero of my family
And still my pictures upon their wall
I'm a poet and a scholar
And the boy who lived next door
I am the unknown soldier
Forgotten on a foreign shore
Long forgotten on a foreign shore

I was someone's lovin' daddy
I was someone's pride and joy
I was someone's tender lover
A worried Mama's little boy
And if you should just forget me here
Then I should forget you too
Please won't you try to bring me home
For I'm someone who belongs to you
I'm still someone who belongs to you

I am the uknown soldier
With no more tears to shed
I'm just a fading memory
A part of the living dead
My country has betrayed me
Yet I have forgiven you
And every night I pray to God
That somehow he'll forgive you too
Yes even somehow he'll forgive you too

I am the unknown soldier
The one for whom you cried
That familiar face that you can't face
The one your country told you died
I am the unknown soldier
With dreams you'll rescue me
And I am a man who understands
Only death might ever set me free
Only death might ever set me free

I am the unknown soldier
And I'm black and blue and grey
I said I am the unknown soldier
And I die slowly every day
And I'm tired and I'm hungry
I am the unknown soldier
The one you bought and sold
I'm the one you bought and sold

So lay down close beside me now
And gently stroke my face
And wrap your arms around me now
Before we leave this place
Some called me P.O.W.
Some called Me M.I.A.
Some say I can't come home again
But I will return someday

Anonymous

Craig Timberg
Washington Post Staff Writer

The man's head is bowed in silhouette. Above is a guard tower; below are the words "You are not forgotten." And three decades after a former Army pilot first sketched the stark image to commemorate those missing in action from America's longest war, it has become an enduring emblem of Vietnam, a flag second in popularity only to Old Glory itself.

The POW/MIA flag, appearing almost always in mournful black and white, has flown over the White House and the Super Bowl, at the New York Stock Exchange and at every post office. It has grown beyond the wildest hopes of its creators to become a quiet yet persistent reminder that not all the wounds of Vietnam have healed.

The POW/MIA flag was created in 1971 by the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Historians and flag experts call the proliferation of the POW/MIA flag unprecedented in the history of the United States and perhaps the world. Never before, they say, have sovereign states and nations required that the flag of a political movement regularly be flown alongside their own. The flag grew from Vietnam, but to veterans organizations it has come to represent all the missing from U.S. military actions dating back to World War II, a group totaling 88,000. Most are from World War II; fewer than 2,000 are from Vietnam.

Sharing his surprise is the flag's creator, a former World War II Army Air Forces pilot named Newton Heisley, now 80. He first sketched the imagery in pencil while working for an advertising agency contracted to design the POW/MIA flag. He intended to add color to the black and white image but never got a chance before flag manufacturer started production. The man's head shown bowed forward in the center is a silhouette of Heisley's son Jeffrey, then 24 and suffering from hepatitis after a Marine Corps training program at Quantico. The words "You are not forgotten" came from Heisley's memory of long military flights across the South Pacific, when he sometimes found himself imagining the terror of being downed, captured and forgotten.

It first flew over the White House in 1988 and was installed in the Capitol Rotunda in 1989, making it the only flag ever permanently displayed there, according to flag experts. And in 1990, Congress adopted the 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."

Congress later passed a law requiring that on six holidays the flag be flown at all post offices, the Capitol, the White House, national cemeteries, military bases and the memorials for the Korean and Vietnam wars. The holidays are Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day and National POW/MIA Day (the third Friday of September).

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