Scott’s View: Recognizing National POW/MIA Recognition Day: Leave No One Behind

Today, September 20, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. This day honors those who were prisoners of war and those who are still missing in action. 

This day of recognition was established in 1979 through a proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter. Since then, each subsequent president has issued an annual proclamation commemorating the third Friday in September in honor of these heroic Americans. 

Vietnam Veterans know the importance of this day all too well. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, of the 2,646 originally missing during the Vietnam War, 1,582 remain missing. The U.S. Department of Defense spends over $110 million per year in the effort, and with the cooperation of the Vietnamese government, the number unaccounted for has gradually decreased.

I have returned to Vietnam twice since my service there in 1967-68. On my first trip to Vietnam with fellow Vietnam Veterans in 1982 on a non-diplomatic mission, we discussed the issue of American MIA’s with high level Vietnamese officials. We asked for their cooperation to find, identify and bring home the remains of our 2,646 American MIA servicemembers. Surely they could understand how important it was to the families of the fallen. They understood, but said they had hundreds of thousands of MIA’s in their country and would be spending their limited resources on recovering them first. Nevertheless, in a gesture of good faith, they turned over to our delegation some of the first remains of MIAs from Vietnam, bringing a sense of closure to the families of those fallen heroes. 

As a country, we must never forget those who have served, and do everything in our power to ensure no one is left behind. While they may be gone now, or missing, they will never be forgotten.