Today is the national observance of POW/MIA (Prisoners of War/Missing In Action) Recognition Day, not a federal holiday but a national observance.

It is a time when we can think about those who did not come home in caskets draped in red, white and blue. They may not have come home at all.

It is a time to remember those who suffered in horrible conditions as prisoners of war, whose bodies and spirits were tested, tried, and sometimes broken.

It is a time to consider those whose final resting places are known only to God.

More than a half million Americans have been captured and interned as prisoners of war since the American Revolution. Those numbers include more than 142,000 Americans captured and interned as POWs since World War I. Nearly 100 of those were women.

Many came home, but not all.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency states that 82,000 Americans remain missing from World War II forward including the Korean War, Vietnam War and Gulf Wars, 883 of those from Colorado. Many of those could still be brought home if countries like North Korea would cooperate in doing so. Some progress is being made there, and hopefully more families will experience an end to the waiting they have suffered for decades. Many of those represented in that number were presumed lost at sea. There will likely never be a homecoming for them, at least not on this earth.

Some of the missing have come from this valley, which has produced so many brave men and women in uniform. One of the loneliest places in our local cemetery is the POW/MIA plot. On Memorial Day, those attending the services move from one military section to another, ending at the POW/MIA plot were a poem is read as volunteers form a color guard.

The POW/MIA commemoration has a special flag designed by Newt Heisley whose son was medically discharged from the military. The flag features the silhouette of a young man, based on Heisley’s son. As this father looked at his returning son’s gaunt features, he imagined what life was like for those behind barbed wire fences on foreign shores. He then sketched the profile of his son as the new flag’s design was created in his mind.

The flag features a black silhouette inside a white circle, a watchtower with a guard on patrol, and a strand of barbed wire. White letters “POW” and “MIA”, with a white five-pointed star in between, are typed above the circle. Below the circle is a black and white wreath above the motto “You Are Not Forgotten” written in white, capital letters.

The flag is displayed on this day and can also be displayed on Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day. It can be displayed at the Capitol, the White House, the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, national cemeteries, various government buildings, and major military installations.

As the president stated in the proclamation for this day of remembrance, “As a nation, it is our solemn obligation to account for the remains of our fallen American service members and civilians and to bring them home whenever possible. We owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to these patriots who gave their last full measure of devotion for our country.”

President Trump added that the POW/MIA flag would be flying at the White House and other sites on Friday, September 21 “to recognize those who have suffered the horrors of enemy captivity, those who have still not returned from war, and the families who have yet to lay their loved ones to rest with the honor and dignity they deserve.”