POW/MIA Flag Labeled "Racist" Infurating

This is the real story of the POW-MIA Flag some jerk called "racist"

The Story of the POW/MIA Flag
History.net
Marc Leepson

You see it everywhere—the stark, black-and-white POW/MIA flag—flying in front of VA hospitals, post offices and other federal, state and local government buildings, businesses and homes. It flaps on motorcycles, cars and pickup trucks. The flag has become an icon of American culture, a representation of the nation’s concern for military service personnel missing and unaccounted for in overseas wars.

From the Revolution to the Korean War, thousands of U.S. soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors have been taken prisoner or gone missing. But it took the Vietnam War—and a sense of abandonment felt by wives and family members of Americans held captive—to bring forth what has evolved into the nation’s POW/MIA symbol.

Heisley modeled the flag’s silhouette on his 24-year-old son, who was on leave from the Marines and looking gaunt while getting over hepatitis. Heisley also penned the words that are stitched on the banner, “You are not forgotten.”

As Heisley told the Colorado Springs Gazette in 1997, the flag “was intended for a small group. No one realized it was going to get national attention.”

There are what politicians use for their own power and to repay financial backers but there are other things veterans and families do for each other. The question is, why did News Week cover this?

It’s Time to Haul Down Another Flag of Racist Hate
News Week
BY RICK PERLSTEIN
8/11/15

Rick Perlstein is the national correspondent of The Washington Spectator, on whose site this article first appeared.

You know that racist flag? The one that supposedly honors history but actually spreads a pernicious myth? And is useful only to venal right-wing politicians who wish to exploit hatred by calling it heritage? It’s past time to pull it down.

Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to the Confederate flag. Actually, I’m talking about the POW/MIA flag.

The flag was the creation of the National League of Families of Prisoners of War, later the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, a fascinating part of the story in itself.
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