One of the many strange things about the story of the POW/MIA flag is that it grew more popular decades after the Vietnam POWs came home than they were when the flag was created by activists lobbying for their release. That’s when politicians everywhere started flying the POW/MIA flag outside public buildings.
Now the flags are everywhere. I pass several on my way to work every day, flown not just at veterans organizations, but wherever you see the American flag. At the inauguration of Gov. Charlie Baker in January, I noticed three flags on the podium of the House chambers: the U.S. flag, the flag of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the POW/MIA flag.
For a long time, I’ve been wondering why this flag rose to such unprecedented prominence. What does that flag say about American history and the attitudes of Americans? Who does it honor – just the Vietnam-era POWS and MIAs for whom it was created, or POWs and MIAs from other wars, like my Uncle Bub, whose plane crashed in the Balkans during World War II? What about the KIAs and the disabled vets and everyone else who has served in uniform? Are they promised they’ll “never be forgotten” just like the POWs and MIAs? And if all their sacrifices are to be honored, is the image of an American held in a foreign prison the symbol we would choose?
I raise these questions and more in a column this week in the MetroWest Daily News and other GateHouse Media publications:
In the column, I call on people to start taking the POW/MIA flags, hoping to start a conversation. The response has been interesting, and anything but one-sided.
It’s not an issue politicians want to touch. I asked John Kerry about in an ed board in 1996, and he predictably dodged the question. But I still think the wrong flag is being flown in the wrong places, and 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War, we ought to be able to talk about it.
As long as there are military personnel unaccounted for I think it is appropriate to fly the flag.
I mean there’s unaccounted personnel from the revolutionary war, right?
Though after some time everyone can reasonably be presumed dead. There as plenty of living veterans from more recent conflicts who I can certainly understand would not want us to forget their comrades.
…about the Vietnam War.
This flag was created with a very specific purpose, and that purpose was to perpetuate the Vietnam war.
…to remember those who aren’t with us? If anything it sounds like a motive to bring the war to end and not create more POW-MIAs. Obviously nobody is now advocating a continuation of that war and I believe we now have normalized relations with Vietnam.
The purpose of the flag was to encourage the US to send MORE troops and fly MORE sorties. That’s the reality.
Today, that purpose is long-gone along with the war. That’s why the flag should be retired.
The guard in the tower is wearing a Vietnamese nón lá hat.
What’s wrong with a permanent reminder that we shouldn’t wage wars of choice? That we should hold this aging group of veterans in our memory? This is different from the Confederate flag. That flag, particularly the battle flag for Lee’s army, should never be flown. It is a flag of treason to defend the peculiar institution, it is not a flag of heritage, or any heritage worth claiming.
In this case, I think even if the authors of the flag or it’s initial backers favored a pro-war message that contemporary Americans should certainly reject, I also think it has been reinterpreted and reclaimed by many veterans and peace activists, including the Vietnam vets I proudly marched with at the 2004, 2005, and 2006 Iraq War anniversary protests in Boston.
Are we more or less likely to remember the complex legacy of the Vietnam War by getting rid of this flag? I would argue less so, it’s just another way of consigning that mistake to history and forgetting those that live with it to this day.
The few iterations that I can find either have a circle for the guards head, or something that looks like a generic helmet. Probably makes sense that some versions of the design have a point, given the origin of the flag.
n/t
Depends. Before anything, I respect Rick for mentioning a question that in the slightest way invites critical thinking of America’s veneration for all things military. Does it do any harm that our de facto “alternate” flag is one that emphasizes war and loss? Our rather…unusual emphasis on members in the military (reserved parking spots for some restaurants, prioritized boarding in airports) certainly complicates efforts to question American willingness to use force.
Personally, I don’t think it is inappropriate to fly that flag, but I think it makes good sense to ask why we continue to use it to memorialize something that is in the deepening past and elevates some Americans far above others.
Fewer veterans before or since Vietnam have been as mistreated and disrespected as they were , all for a war few of them volunteered for or would’ve elected to fight had they known all the facts. Another generation of young men and women are coming back from similarly murky wars.
I guess cause of the Rambo/MIA movie myths about live Americans still there and association with Reagan, a lot of lefties dislike this flag. If anything
, to me flying it with Old Glory should remind us that blind flag waving comes with a cost. The dark somber POW flag serves as that reminder to me.
The leftie aversion to this flag began a decade before Reagan, and was an immediate response to the flagrantly hostile purpose of the flag’s original creation.
While the Vietnam war was starting to wind down, there were many POWs and MIAs still in enemy hands. The war was already lost. It was clear to all parties that it was coming to an end. The war-mongers of the time wanted a full-scale US invasion of North Vietnam, Cambodia, and other hostile terroritory. The claim at the time was “If we wanted to win this war, we could.” The assertion was that communist atheist anti-American socialist traitors were abandoning valiant soldiers in a cowardly desertion of a loyal ally (South Vietnam).
This flag was, to that movement, what the Che Guevara flags and tshirts were the cold war, Cuba, South America, and migrant rights battles.
Our efforts to recast the POW/MIA are closer to propaganda than reality.
FWIW, the wiki articles seem to indicate that the initial organization was a legitimate grassroots group founded by military spouses. It was only later that a splinter group backed the myth about live prisoners, and it was a myth rejected by the Nixon and Ford White Houses, which seems to refute your contention they were a ruse to continue the war.
Granted, you grew up in that time so these battles were more important to you. Uncle Jon and Dad were class of 68′ and 70′ respectively, at Salem High and both were involved in protests. Dad always viewed the flag as a mixed bag-some Vietnam Vets use the flag to honor the actual cause and to claim they were abandoned by a Washington and a people that wouldn’t “let them win”. I remember a BBQ where an old high school buddy claimed of dad’s claimed the Chinese had stolen American soldiers and had them reprogrammed, I sadly think the war reprogrammed him more than anything else. The Rambo and MIA action films definitely embody this persona.
But most Vietnam vets he knows, and the ones I proudly marched with to protest the Iraq War, view the flag as a symbol of respect and recognition for the sacrifices of Vietnam vets and the complete indifference our nation showed them after they came home. I hope that indifference is never repeated, particularly with this generation of veterans, and if this flag can serve as a means of avoiding the mistakes of history rather than repeating them, I don’t see who it harms.
I’m reminded of the initial reaction to the original Vietnam War Memorial (the black slab) in DC. I was there, with several of veteran friends and family members, for the dedication. Even then (early 1980s, if I recall), the right wing opposed the memorial design because they felt it was “defeatist” and “depressing” — they wanted something heroic and inspiring.
I find the wiki article you posted weak because of all it doesn’t say. Perhaps this is simply how history happens. The facts as reported are consistent with my memory of the times, although I don’t remember the 1980s offshoot.
What the article does not describe is the way the POW/MIA flag was used by the rightwing during the street demonstrations and protester/police/hardhat battles of the era. Whatever the intent of the original creators, I’m describing what I saw and experienced first-hand during those times.
I also agree with the perceptions you cite from your family. Perhaps some veterans embrace the symbol in a way analogous to the re-capture of “queer” by the gay community.
I’m reluctant to generalize from the Vietnam era to today. In my view, it is enormously significant that the Vietnam war, and most of the POW/MIAs, were conscripts — working class and minority kids who were drafted because they didn’t go to college. In my view, today’s veterans are qualitatively different from that because we no longer have a draft.
I agree that we should not repeat the indifference. In my view, the POW/MIA flag is irrelevant to that.
I also graduated in 1970. From a working class high school where very few went to college because we got jobs instead. We have never had a reunion because so many of my classmates were killed in the war because they couldn’t plead student deferments like better-off kids did.
Personally I have no problem honoring those who did not come home and the many whose ends are unknown. Then again, I knew them so they are more than a symbolic construct to me.
Honoring “those who did not come” is great. So do it. Honor them by imposing a moratorium on new combat. Honor them by increasing funding for veteran’s services. For that matter, honor them by prosecuting US officials who denigrate their sacrifice by ordering and carrying out war crimes and torture. Indeed, I agree — we SHOULD honor them.
The black flag fails in that mission.
For you it does, but many of the Vietnam vets for peace marchers I marched with, some of whom remembered marching with Senator Kerry in the 70s, they reclaimed that flag and proudly affixed it as a pin or a patch to their hats and uniforms. It waves outside the UAV hall in North Cambridge, one of the last gathering places for the old white ethnics who once made up that neighborhood who have an honor roll behind it honoring the dead from our neighborhood in Vietnam-and they were many. So many that Tip was one of the first old school pols to turn against the war.
To me we are less likely to remember the dead if we get rid of this flag. And less likely to remember the consequences of that foolish war.
Blacks can and do call one another “nigger” in an affectionate way. That doesn’t make the word less offensive.
I guess we just disagree about this flag.
As you say, it’s not that important.
It was fairly easy for me to dismiss this as not a priority at the beginning of the discussion, I would still say that, but I was also surprised to see a more even split of those opposed and those against. I also appreciated that what we all had in common was a desire to honor these veterans without forgiving or forgetting the consequences of this disastrous war.
I would also agree completely about the power of the Vietnam War Memorial. One wonders if the vote on the AUMF would’ve been as decisive had members been required to read all the names from their communities on that wall. It stands in stark contrast to the WWII Memorial which looks exactly like what a design by committee produces: something that stirs neither emotions nor deeper thinking.
While emphasizing the lost, it also emphasizes an inherent nobility and honor. As if that’s the only way to earn honor and nobility in our society. I guess I’d prefer less blind flag-waving, not more flag augmentation to justify it.
I think we have to tread carefully and avoid the mistake of the anti-war movement in the past that flew NVA flags and spit on soldiers coming home. I highly recommend this piece by James Fallows that he wrote ten years after dodging the draft, I think it really speaks to the mixed emotions many Americans had about the conflict.
I know my dad always made it clear when we went to anti-war protests in this era to distinguish between supporting the troops and opposing the war. One can and should do both. I don’t mind saying that Vietnam veterans fought for their country and fought proudly, they were just sent to the wrong place at the wrong time by the wrong people.
SOME (not all, but some) of the veterans came back and terrorized anti-war protestors. The My Lai massacre did happen, and a great many Americans cheered it. Too many returning vets told me they wished they’d had a chance to do the same. I fear you miss the depth of the hostility and bitterness of the times.
The “Support our troops; bring them home” meme is a winner and has always been one of my favorites.
Like I said, my dad made it clear his friend was crazy and was damaged by the war, so that seven year old James wouldn’t take his Manchurian Candidate story too seriously.
But you must concede that Fallows is right that the system turned citizens against one another, in part, so they wouldn’t turn against the system. For Calley to be tried and not McNamara or the other architects of the war is grossly unjust. I am not excusing the soldiers at My Lai, but the crime went all the way up the chain of command.
I think we run into these issues a lot as progressives, how do we communicate truth about the kind of country we want while respecting people’s deeply felt patriotism and faith? It’s a hard line to draw, but I think it is easier to reclaim patriotism, faith, and American values for the progressive side rather than try and start from scratch.
The New Left is admirable for pushing the mainstream liberalism of the 60s in a more pro-women, pro-minority, pro-gay, and anti-war direction. But I still think too many fall into the Robbespierre trap of thinking it was Year Zero. July honors a dead King/pagan God nobody worships anymore, I’ll still take it over Thermidor.
is a POW.
We would spend every resource to free a soldier from the prison of our enemy, but be cheap and inefficient to free them from the prison of their mind once their physical war has ended.
With the suicide rate we see, upwards of 22 vets per day, that flag should be turned upside down.
…but I think POW has a literal and specific definition everyone is familiar with – held in physical captivity by the enemy.
I appreciate this comment, I’ve been thinking the same thing.
The promotion comment asks “Do they do any harm?”
I think they do. Here’s why:
1. They displace state flags. I grew up seeing an American flag with a Maryland state flag below it. As a Boy Scout, I was taught that ANY other flag besides an official state flag was improper. While I long since relaxed those standards, the POW/MIA flag still seems out-of-place for me.
2. They contribute to our militarization. I think we suffer from too much war-mongering. The POW/MIA flag was created in order to keep the Vietnam war front-and-center during the last years of the conflict, precisely because the anti-war movement was gaining momentum. We have parades, veterans organizations, and — sadly — veterans cemeteries to honor and commemorate the service of our veterans. In my view, flying this flag on virtually every public flagpole many private ones goes too far.
3. It is unnecessarily confrontational and divisive. No matter how much perfume we spray on it, this flag was created by the rightwing during the Vietnam era as a ploy to perpetuate the war. Its original intent was NOT to “commemorate” the POWs and MIAs, it was to incite public support for continuing an immoral and already lost war “until every last POW and MIA was accounted for”. This flag was brought to us by the same people who brought us the Kent State and Jackson State massacres, blood in our streets, “hard hats” battling students, and all the other bitter hostility of those times.
4. It’s ugly. It’s first impression is, frankly, of a pirate Jolly Roger. It detracts from the Stars and Stripes and draws both the eye and spirit down.
I reject the attempt to genericize and sugar-coat this flag. It had little to do with genuine concern for veterans, and everything to do with perpetuating the war that destroyed their lives. In the 1970s, those of us who loved and cared about veterans worked hard to bring them home. This black flag did just the opposite.
It is time to retire this symbol of an immoral and divisive war, and relegate them to display cabinets next to peace symbols and images from Woodstock.
I would like to see the Massachusetts flag waving softly underneath the stars and stripes at the State House and elsewhere in Massachusetts. For me, THAT will be a sign of peace, prosperity, and common purpose.
On the list of the 1000 things that need to change about America this might be 998, right underneath removing ‘In God We Trust’ from the currency and ‘Under God’ from the pledge. Unlike fighting climate change or anti-gay discrimination, these issues are entirely symbolic shibboleths of ideological purity that bare next to no relevance to our day to day existence as a species or a people.
Nobody my age, even most of my friends, know what these flags mean. And the only reason I know about them was because my parents said they were a reminder of the friends and lives wasted on an unjust war in Vietnam, that’s their interpretation, but that’s the one I choose to follow.
Not sure that I agree that labeling our loyalty oath and currency with the name of a specific deity is no big deal. Symbols mean something, when used to include or exclude.
It’s on my list of things to change. First and foremost, as a Christian I agree with Teddy Roosevelt that it defames God to put his name and image on our currency. As an American, I agree with Washington, Jefferson, and Madison on a strict separation of church and state and avoiding public endorsements of religion.
But it’s way down the list. Atheists are routinely jailed in Russia and Iran, Christians are getting violently ethnically cleansed in the Middle East. It’s pretty lame for either side to argue happy holidays or in god we trust is a threat to their civil rights.
“Give unto Caesar …”
It might win the award for the quote biblical literalists go out of there way to avoid taking literally. At least a close second to the Sermon on the Mount.
Public schools are still compulsory, and the Pledge is still (I think!) a part of compulsory daily ritual in those schools.
For those of us who do not believe in God and who have children or grandchildren who feel the same, it’s a bit more sensitive. Certainly not as important as climate change or even keeping the trains running, but not trivial either.
I agree that there are many things that are more important, and I agree with you that this “issue” is about the same as “In God We Trust” and “Under God”.
I just responded to the post — and in particular, the promotion comment.
There are too many things that divide us. This shouldn’t be one of them.
There are lots of ways to honor those who serve, and those do not in any way depend on this flag. Perhaps we might, for example, significantly increase government spending on the Veteran’s Administration, its hospitals, and veteran’s care.
Reminding ourselves that we are all residents of a common wealth is important too.
But, and don’t take this the wrong way, screw you.
n/t
as if I wasn’t serious.
“You’ve cared about those people long enough, so get over it.”
So, let’s bulldoze the Vietnam Memorial in D.C. too, right?
The troll-and-run original poster shouldn’t be offended, should he?
It’s been long enough, he should get over it.
The Vietnam Memorial gets it exactly right.
That’s why right-wing activists were so opposed to it when it was being planned and dedicated. That’s why folks keep trying to “improve” it littering the park around it with “more heroic” statues.
The memorial turns the visitor from voyeur to participant. In order to read an individual name (a great many visitors come to find the names of their loved ones), you must come so close that you are surrounded by a sea of black granite — with names of the dead stretching as far as you can see.
A visit to the Vietnam Memorial in DC is one of the best ways I can think of to keep the lessons of Vietnam alive, because of the way it resurrects the scale, the depression, and the vast numbers of the dead.
I’ll keep the Vietnam Memorial exactly as it is, thank you very much.
I didn’t know anyone directly who had died in the conflict, but the first visit to the memorial was quite emotional for me. The way it starts with just a few names on one end, where you can read each one as you slowly move, until you get to the point where the list gets so much bigger and seems to stretch on to infinity – and realizing that there was a person, a family, a story behind each name. It was tough. Art at its best.
I’m in D.C. several times year, often with one of all my kids. We visit the wall and Arlington almost every trip. “Art at its best,” indeed.
4th panel left of center, eye level, first name in the row – I believe shot down over Cambodia. RIP
The POW/MIA flag flies proudly there, too.
Enjoy your attempt to pull it down.
I do remember that “controversy”. Even though she was an American, born in Athens, OH, certain participants in the controversy over the memorial objected to her Chinese (not Vietnamese) heritage and her gender.
I appreciate your reminder of the sexism and racism that permeated that controversy. It helps remind us of the reasons why some returning veterans were criticized and why the POW/MIA flag was (and still is for some of us) divisive.
I’m genuinely glad that, at least for the Memorial, Maya Lin’s superb design has triumphed over the hostilities that initially accompanied it.
(The above is a phrase popular among GIs in Vietnam during the late 60’s, early 70’s)
Just pieces of colored fabric placed for display to demonstrate the patriotic vigor of some politician or bureaucrat. The reality is that they could care less about some Americans imprisoned and out of the way. Heck, 22,000 were kept by the Russians when they overran German camps in 1945. Many with technical skills disappeared from POW detention in Korea and Vietnam and were never repatriated. To my knowledge, no inquiries by high level US Government types were ever made of the fate of these soldiers.
But, is the POW flag any worse than the symbolism of a very important politician laying a wreath Memorial Day to honor those that died in battle, some of which as a direct consequence of the VIP’s sociopathic policies?
“The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.” –David Friedman
should be to go out and find rusty “deaf child playing” signs and, if the child has subsequently grown up, have the signs removed.
My issue with flying a flag like this or putting the ribbon magnets on the back of the car is that it lets someone feel that they are honoring the troops with little actual benefit going to the people they think they are honoring. I get particularly annoyed when I’m at a sporting event and, during a break, one or more active or retired military personnel are brought out. They show them on the big screen, everyone stands and applauds. Then it is, “OK, took care of that, back to the game”.
Meanwhile we still find ways to create more veterans and don’t provide for them properly when they come home. I’d be more impressed if I were at a game and they brought someone out and explained that she or he has an outstanding medical problem as a result of their service yet have not been able to get treatment from the VA. People working the aisles would hand you contact sheets for your reps and those of the veteran and you’d be encouraged to get in touch and demand some action. THAT would be some serious “honoring”.
The bottom line is displays of “support” are necessary but not sufficient and IMHO they let people off the hook way too easily.
Dang lack of edit function…
This has been an interesting thread. I don’t particularly trust The Nation on stuff like this, but nevertheless there is an article that supports the views expressed by somervilletom. That article suggests that the flag and “POW/MIA” movement arose because the Johnson administration more or less ignored that there were indeed POWs, and was later “co-opted” by the Nixon admin as an unsuccessful argument to continue the war.
Even if true, it seems to me to be that the flag has been unmoored from that for 40 years. I have always viewed it as blunt reminder that “support the troops” means something more than clapping in airports.
I am also not particularly confident that re-opening this particular decades-old boomer culture wars is useful in any way, even if the whole thing derives from a devious change of designation from KIA to MIA perpetrated by the Nixons.
The article you cited recalls many painful memories of that time.
I’m all for supporting our troops. I have no desire to reopen any culture wars.
I have a mostly wistful hope that the Massachusetts flag could regain its rightful place under the American flag on our public flagpoles. Maybe three flags per pole is the answer.
…the state flag IS supposed to take precedence over all flags other than Old Glory, and equally sure that I’ve seen poles with US, state, POW-MIA in that order.
I guess it’s too hard to handle three flags.
To the extent that I care, I like the three-flag solution more than replacing the state flag with the black flag.