We are the P.O.W M.I.A Sent to do our goverments biddingWe are fit ready able and and wilingSent to fight a warFor the country we adoreWe are lost but not for gottenWe are the POW MIAFighting for the land of the freeThe home of the braveWe might be slavesBut proud we will always beWe are the P.O.W M.I.AWe stand tall in our prisons we faceNever shall we fallFighting for our lost brothers at armsTogether, all for one one for allWe are the P.O.W M.I.ANever shall our memory fadeFor we will all together standGlorious one dayCrawling from our cellsWe are heaven boundFor have already been through hellWe are the P.O.W M.I.A

Anonymous

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

So many years have come and goneSometimes, hope is hard to keepThere’s some who feel there’s noneAnd in some, it’s buried deep.

The pain, is in not knowingHow, to put loved ones’ to restWhen there is no way to proveThey have passed, the final test.

But, no matter what the answersWe can’t let this cause aloneUntil, each and every one of themIs found, and brought back home

by
Del “Abe” JonesThe National Alliance of Families

POW*MIA

"I Am The Unknown Soldier"

I am the unknown soldierSome call me M.I.A.Some say I can't go home againSome say I chose to stayI am the uknown soldierwho you refuse to knowA brother and a friend of yoursWho left so long agoSome call me P.O.W.The one they left behindI am the unknown soldierThe one they never tried to findI'm the one they never tried to find

I'm a farmer from MissouriThe soldier from St. PaulI was the hero of my familyAnd still my pictures upon their wallI'm a poet and a scholarAnd the boy who lived next doorI am the unknown soldierForgotten on a foreign shoreLong forgotten on a foreign shore

I was someone's lovin' daddyI was someone's pride and joyI was someone's tender loverA worried Mama's little boyAnd if you should just forget me hereThen I should forget you tooPlease won't you try to bring me homeFor I'm someone who belongs to youI'm still someone who belongs to you

I am the uknown soldierWith no more tears to shedI'm just a fading memoryA part of the living deadMy country has betrayed meYet I have forgiven youAnd every night I pray to GodThat somehow he'll forgive you tooYes even somehow he'll forgive you too

I am the unknown soldierThe one for whom you criedThat familiar face that you can't faceThe one your country told you diedI am the unknown soldierWith dreams you'll rescue meAnd I am a man who understandsOnly death might ever set me freeOnly death might ever set me free

I am the unknown soldierAnd I'm black and blue and greyI said I am the unknown soldierAnd I die slowly every dayAnd I'm tired and I'm hungryI am the unknown soldierThe one you bought and soldI'm the one you bought and sold

So lay down close beside me nowAnd gently stroke my faceAnd wrap your arms around me nowBefore we leave this placeSome called me P.O.W.Some called Me M.I.A.Some say I can't come home againBut I will return someday

Anonymous

Craig TimbergWashington Post Staff WriterThe 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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