Vigo County Historical Society

Bracelets helped raise awareness during Vietnam War

In the subdued lighting of the Military Room in the Vigo County Historical Museum, one can view and reflect upon artifacts that honor and memorialize the men and women who have served in our country’s armed forces over the years.

Amid the battered, scarred and stained uniforms, equipment, medals and munitions, one’s eye is caught by a small metallic glint. It is the sparked reflected from a simple, silver bracelet engraved with GWO Quintin Beecher and the date 6-11-67. In spite of its simplicity, it is a token of turbulent recent history; the manifestation of a grass-roots effort to keep in the public eye the plight of the Prisoners of War and those Missing in Action during the Vietnam War.

Quintin Beecher, a Terre Haute native, was a helicopter pilot who was declared missing in action over the South China Sea on June 11, 1967. He was one of the 766 POWs and 2,338 men declared missing in action during the Vietnam War. (He was officially presumed dead on June 3, 1973.)

The bracelet on display is one of 5 million that were distributed between 1970 and 1976 to recognize and keep in the public eye those service personnel who were missing in action or prisoners of war. Until the inception of the bracelet campaign, these men attracted very little media coverage and were remembered only by friends and families.

The idea for the bracelets was the brainchild of VIVA (Voices in a Vital America), a nonprofit, nonpolitical student organization as a peaceful means to raise public awareness of the tragic plight of our MIAs and POWs in Southeast Asia.

VIVA joined with the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia and issued the first bracelets on Veterans Day in 1970. The campaign was initially aimed at students, who were actively involved in anti-war protests on campuses across the country. As it turned out, thousands of requests and donations flowed in from anywhere between a "buck for luck" to the requested price of $2.50, on a daily basis from people in all walks of life. The money raised was used to print brochures, information sheets, buttons, badges and bumper stickers to needle the conscience of the public and government officials and assure that our MIAs and POWs were not forgotten and every effort made to recover bodies and bring home our prisoners of war.

Traditionally the POW-MIA bracelet was worn until the man named on the bracelet was accounted for or returned home, then was mailed to the man or his family. Unfortunately, of the 3,104 men who were listed as POWs or MIAs, only 591 men returned. Today there are still thousands of these simple bracelets in circulation, be they buried at the bottom of a drawer, as a souvenir of a sad time in our history, or still adorning a wrist, as a visible reminder of those who never returned.