You Are Not Forgotten

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

The third Friday in September, 9/18, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. First established in 1979 through a proclamation signed by President Jimmy Carter, succeeding presidents have issued an annual proclamation commemorating the day.

A grassroots effort is under way to commemorate these veterans with a daisy, on your lapel or placed on the graves of POW/MIA vets. Kathy Thomas is passing along the tradition her father, Lt. Col. Joseph Zelazny Jr. (pictured above), a WWII veteran and former POW, started decades ago; like her father, she passes out daisy lapel pins with a tag that says, AMERICAN EX-PRISONERS OF WAR "They Shall Never Be Forgotten." Kathy remembers her father and other POWs passed these daisies out on the third Friday of September years ago. With the daisy, they handed a paper that reads: "The Daisy was chosen as a national symbol of all former POWs. The Military Code of Conduct required that only name, rank and serial number were to be voluntarily divulged to the enemy. American folklore has long deemed that "daisies won't tell", making it a tribute to the memory of those who have endured the hardships of captivity."

THE GREEN BOX film tells the story of Robert Kurtz and his imprisonment under the Germans during WWII, and we’re promoting this effort to honor POWs and MIA soldiers. In WWII alone more than 130,000 men were imprisoned, of whom over 14,000 died in captivity. And over 80,000 veterans are MIA from conflicts since and including WWII. By wearing a daisy on this national remembrance day, Kathy Thomas, The Green Box team and others will honor the sacrifice of veterans who were taken POW or are MIA. Kathy and her husband have made 200 daisy lapel pins that her children and grandchildren will be distributing in Liberty Lake WA, and they will be placing daisies at the gravesites of POWs at the Washington state veterans cemetery. We’re encouraging supporters of our project and military family members to wear a daisy (real or silk) to honor American POW/MIAs and/or to place them on the graves of these brave soldiers.

Jim Kurtz plans to visit POW graves in Ipswich with daisies. And he penned this personal remembrance about his dad, a POW at Stalag Luft III in 1944-45: "On September 16, 1944, my father, 2^nd Lt. Robert R. Kurtz, sat down to write a letter home to his parents. It was not your normal newsy letter. (Click here to Read More )

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