pow-mia-us-flag-pentagon-poleThe Story of the Other Racist Flag

As the Nixon administration prosecuted the Vietnam War, American citizens enacted a bizarre psychic reversal

  By Rick Perlstein

  Posted on  in Politics

 

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 this.

Downed pilots whose bodies were not recovered—which, in the dense jungle of a place like Vietnam meant most pilots—had once been classified “Killed in Action/Body Unrecovered.” During the Nixon years, the Pentagon moved them into a newly invented “Missing in Action” column.

I told the story in the first chapter of my 2014 book The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan: how Richard Nixon invented the cult of the “POW/MIA” in order to justify the carnage in Vietnam in a way that rendered the United States as its sole victim.

It began, as cultural historian H. Bruce Franklin has documented, with an opportunistic shift in terminology. Downed pilots whose bodies were not recovered—which, in the dense jungle of a place like Vietnam meant most pilots—had once been classified “Killed in Action/Body Unrecovered.” During the Nixon years, the Pentagon moved them into a newly invented “Missing in Action” column. That proved convenient, for, after years of playing down the existence of American prisoners in Vietnam, in 1969, the new president suddenly decided to play them up. He declared their treatment, and the enemy’s refusal to provide a list of their names, violations of the Geneva Conventions—the better to paint the North Vietnamese as uniquely cruel and inhumane. He also demanded the release of American prisoners as a precondition to ending the war.

This was bullshit four times over: first, because in every other conflict in human history, the release of prisoners had been something settled at the close of a war; second, because these prisoners only existed because of America’s antecedent violations of the Geneva Conventions in bombing civilians in an undeclared war; and third, because, as bad as their torture of prisoners was, rather than representing some species of Oriental despotism, the Vietnam Communists were only borrowing techniques practiced on them by their French colonists (and incidentally paid forward by us in places like Abu Ghraib): see this as-told-to memoir by POW and future senator Jeremiah Denton.

And finally, our South Vietnamese allies’ treatment of their prisoners, who lived manacled to the floors in crippling underground bamboo “tiger cages” in prison camps built by us, was far worse than the torture our personnel suffered. (Time magazine quoted one South Vietnamese official who was confronted with stories of released prisoners moving “like crabs, skittering across the floor on buttocks and palms,” and responded with incredulity that such survivors even existed: “No one ever comes from the tiger cages alive.”)

Be that as it may: it worked. American citizens enacted a bizarre psychic reversal. A man from Virginia Beach, Virginia, described to a reporter the supposed treatment of American prisoners in North Vietnam: “they just dig holes in the ground and drop them in. They throw food down to them, and let them live there in their own waste.” In fact, that was how prisoners were treated in South Vietnam—as recently revealed in a shocking Life magazine exposé.

Children began wearing “POW bracelets,” drivers sported “POWs NEVER HAVE A NICE DAY” bumper stickers. As the late Jonathan Schell of The New Yorker memorably wrote during the war, the Americans were acting “as though the North Vietnamese had kidnapped 400 Americans and the United States had gone to war to retrieve them.” Actually, it was worse: whenever Nixon or one of his minions talked about the problem, they tended to use the number 1,400. The number of actual prisoners, was about 550. The number of downed, missing pilots were spoken of, prima facia, as if they were missing, too, although almost all of them were certainly dead.

And in 1971 that damned flag went up.

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. The organization was founded by POW wife Sybil Stockdale, during the Johnson administration, in an effort to embarrass LBJ and challenge his line that all in Vietnam was going swell. Johnson tried to silence them; Nixon’s people, however, spying opportunity, coopted the group, sometimes inventing chapters outright, to fan the propaganda flames.

Then the war ended, the POWs (yes, all the POWs) were repatriated to great fanfare, one of them declaring: “I want you to remember that we walked out of Hanoi as winners”—a declaration that seemed to suggest, almost, that by surviving, the POWs had won the Vietnam War. The moral confusion was abetted by the flag: the barbed-wire misery of that stark white figure, emblazoned in black.

It memorializes Americans as the preeminent victims of the Vietnam War, a notion seared into the nation’s visual unconscious by the Oscar-nominated 1978 film The Deer Hunter, which depicts acts of sadism, which were documented to have been carried out by our South Vietnamese allies, as acts committed by our North Vietnamese enemies, including the famous scene pictured on The Deer Hunter poster: a pistol pointed at the American prisoner’s head at exactly the same angle of the gun in the famous photograph of the summary execution in the middle of the street of an alleged Communist spy by a South Vietnamese official.

By then, the League and its flag had become the Pentagon’s own Frankenstein’s monster. You can read about the mess that resulted in the definitive book on the subject: Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War by Northwestern University’s Michael J. Allen. Allen describes how Vietnam’s “refusal” to “account for” a thousand phantoms became an impediment to reconciliation and diplomatic recognition between the two nations. (How bizarre, how insulting, how counterproductive this must have been to a nation that must have suffered missing corpses in the thousands upon thousands?) A delegation led by Congressman Gillespie “Sonny” Montgomery (D-MS), chairman of the House Select Committee on Missing in Action in Southeast Asia, traveled to Vietnam in 1975, convinced of the Nixon administration’s deception that hundreds of “MIAs actually” existed. The members of Congress returned home, having found their Communist hosts warm and accommodating, doubting there were any missing at all. In hearings, a CIA pilot captured there in 1965 testified: “If you take a wallet-full of money over there, you can buy all the information you want on POWs on the streets.”

The House committee also produced evidence that China had manufactured stories of MIA in Vietnamese prison camps in order to keep the U.S. from normalizing relations with China’s Asian rival. No matter that the flag’s promoters were abetting an actual, real-live Communist conspiracy, from its original sightings above VFW and American Legion posts, the “You Are Not Forgotten” flag became as common as kudzu. Midwifing an entire metastasizing Pentagon bureaucracy, the League of Families would also become an irritant to every future president. By 1993, 17 Americans were stationed in Hanoi in charge of searching for the missing and working to repatriate remains. They were provided a budget of $100 million a year, “over 30 times the value of U.S. humanitarian aid paid to Vietnam,” Allen writes. It would have been evidence of Ronald Reagan’s old saw that the closest thing to eternal life is a government program—if Reagan were not a prime culprit: in 1988, he became the first president to fly the flag over the White House. The next year, Congress installed the flag in the Capitol Rotunda. In 1990, it was designated “a symbol of our Nation’s concern and commitment to restoring and resolving as fully as possible the fates of Americans still prisoner, missing and unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.” Thus ending the uncertainty for their families and the nation. Even today, the flag still flies over every U.S. Post Office.

The League of Families also still exists, and “continues to work at keeping the pressure on both Washington and Hanoi to bring complete resolution to this issue on behalf of each family with a loved one still missing in Vietnam.” My own state of Illinois holds a ceremony every year to honor the “66 Illinoisans listed as MIA or POW in Southeast Asia.” And Bernie Sanders posted an image of the POW/MIA flag on Facebook in response to Donald Trump’s insult against John McCain. The message read: “They are all heroes.”

Actually, as I document in The Invisible Bridge, it’s more complicated than that: many of the prisoners were antiwar activists. One member of the “Peace Committee” within the POW camps, Abel Larry Kavanaugh, was harassed into suicide after his return to the U.S. by the likes of Admiral James Stockdale, who tried to get Peace Committee members hanged for treason. Stockdale would become one of the nation’s most celebrated former POWs and a vice-presidential candidate. Kavanaugh took his life in his father in law’s basement in Commerce City, Colorado, in June 1973. Americans would agree that one of them—Stockdale or Kavanaugh—is not a hero—though they would disagree about which one is which.

That damned flag: it’s a shroud. It smothers the complexity, the reality, of what really happened in Vietnam.

We’ve come to our senses about that other banner of lies. It’s time to do the same with this.


Rick Perlstein is The Washington Spectator‘s national correspondent.

 

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87 Responses to “The Story of the Other Racist Flag”

  1. Matthew B

    Terrific article; the only missing reference is the 1985 propaganda film “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” which brought to life for a new generation the myth that North Vietnam was still (!) holding Americans captive.

    Reply
  2. Jeff

    You assert the flag to be racist in the title and in the opening line, and then fail to demonstrate ANY association of racism with the creation or the flying of the POW-MIA flag in the rest of your article. I am forced to assume that you injected racism at the front in an attempt to draw in readers who would find out too late that they were victims of the old bait-and-switch, reading anti-American screed instead.

    Reply
    • Amanda

      Racist against the North Vietnamese. It’s most definitely a racist flag. No bait-and-switch.

      Reply
      • Wesley

        ummm, There is no such place call North Vietnam, and no such people called North Vietnmese. Now I understand how you can confuse this article, you simple have no worldly knowledge other than what is fed to you!

        Reply
      • Chris

        Per the Oxford English Dictionary, “racist” is: “A person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another”.

        North Vietnam was a political entity; it’s citizens did not comprise a race. Vietnamese, as a whole, is a NATIONALITY. If the symbolism of the flag was truly racist, that would have to extend over all Asian people.

        Swing and a miss…better luck next time.

        Reply
      • Buzz

        Wow, you learn something new everyday! So when did “North Vietnamese” become a race? And why would this country and that flag only be racist against a group of people, while fighting as allies with another group of people who come from the same area, and solely base its racism on whether these two people live above or below an imaginary line? Is “Nationist” a coined, hilariously baseless name-calling, Liberal buzzword yet?

        Reply
  3. Publius Scipio

    “Terrific” for what, revisionist tripe? Can’t the left be honest and start spitting on vets and calling them “baby killers”, again already?

    Reply
    • kgdavenport

      No, Publius, the left can’t be honest. Revisionism is the only thing that they know, since facts need to be reworked to fit their value system. We were evil baby killers in Vietnam, and the flag serves to honor our evil deeds. Those poor Vietnamese in the North just wanted to be left alone to farm their lands. We did everything that John Kerry said we did when he came back to testify to Congress: rape, murder, pillage.

      It’s revisionism at is best and dishonors that millions of American who honorably served during Vietnam only to get spat on when they got home. But the left hates America and can’t leave this trope buried. Pathetic.

      Reply
  4. Dominic

    Not sure if it was a Freudian slip, but you wrote “Stockade” once when it should be “Stockdale.”

    Reply
  5. YAWN

    Rick Perlstein – a bigoted totalitarian idiot pretending to be a writer.

    Reply
  6. KENNETH FRANCIS

    I have never seen the beat in all my life; how do you liberals get so twisted? If you hate America so much then feel free to leave.

    Reply
  7. James

    Standard leftist practice of when you don’t have a good argument to make just cry racism that’ll get attention. This has to be one of the most convoluted, ill conceived arguments I’ve ever read. Another item that goes to support my theorem that the left is not happy about anything and every little thing represents some huge problem. It’s really quite unhinged thinking.

    Reply
  8. Terry Garner

    Man, you really are a fucking idiot.

    Reply
  9. Steve Joyce

    I was there.

    FUCK YOU, and FUCK the horse you rode in on.

    I DARE you to talk this absurd insulting mendacious crap face to face with ANY Vietnam vet.

    You simpering supercilious lubbers only know what you read, and you believe your own lies.

    FUCK YOU ALL.

    S.J.

    USN

    ’67-’74

    SAT Cong!

    Never forget, NEVER!

    Reply
    • Ward Dorrity

      As a member of your generation, I honor your service and with the deepest respect. I was not called and thus did not serve (was in college at the time), but even then, as a student of history, I knew that there was something fundamentally wrong with the entire anti-war ‘movement’. It was then, as it is now, a battle for the continuity of Western Civilization versus a totalitarian supremacy that slaughtered millions in the pursuit of absolute power.

      That’s why sniveling little leftist rat bastards like the author of this article aren’t fit to clean your boots. And never will be.

      Reply
    • Kara

      Thank you for your service…… And I am so sorry that you country you fought so hard for is full of fucking morons now.
      Sincerely,
      Someone who would never disrespect a vet or their family with bullshit like this!

      Reply
  10. Vet53

    Typical Leftist argument based on emotion and lacking any facts to support the so-called conclusion. I think you may have “triggered” a bout of PTSD for me. Bad Lefty!

    Reply
  11. Mark

    The reality of what really happened in Vietnam is the fact that the Democratic Congress of 1974 refused to extend funding support of South Vietnam’s self-defense against the Russian-Client North Vietnamese Communist invasion. The Viet Communists signed the so-called Peace Accords and then violated them. 500,000 Vietnamese died trying to escape Communism. 1.5 million Cambodians, who were promised U.S. help against communism also perished, under genocide, by the atheistic Khmer Rouge. The POW/MIA flag presents the honorable and duty-bound effort to fully account for unreturned US veterans. They fought for the liberty of strangers. The American people must be reminded of their duty to those who serve them. The Viet Cong strapped satchel charges to children and sent them into formations of Americans. This flag must fly forever in remembrance. If you don’t like it, you’re free not to look at it. Freedom paid for by men greater than you’ll ever be.

    Reply
  12. Army Officer

    First, this has to be an attempt to troll the internet. That’s the only explanation I can think of to explain this intellectually bankrupt waste. Mr. Perlstein’s reasoning behind this foolhardy declaration is completely without merit, and he fails to even provide the slightest amount of evidence to back his assertions on the POW/MIA flag. He is literally grasping for straws trying to justify his own racism, bigotry and hatred.

    He makes the argument that the POW flag is rooted in racism due to Nixon using it as a tool to campaign with. Yet, he glosses over its actual genesis, barely mentioning it was created by a POW spouse, to help others like her leverage the government in reclamation of their loved ones. What a horrible, horrible group – how dare they come together collectively as a support group.

    He shows a limited knowledge of the topic he is debating — military history, specifically attempting to turn an innocent DOD policy into evidence of political deviance. The evolution of military personnel status categories (POW/MIA/etc…) was a logical progression to the HR system in reaction to the complexity of the world that the military operated it. He ignores the fact that the military didn’t just merely create a new MIA status, it revamped the entire system for the benefit of all servicemembers and families.

    The following statement is the epitome of Rick’s stupidity… “in every other conflict in human history, the release of prisoners had been something settled at the close of a war”.
    So because he used “in every other”, he means 50% of the time. So 50% of the time war negotiations go how he thinks they should go, some how this confirms that the other 50% of the time isn’t relevant?

    Further, all conflict negotiations start with negotiations prior to the end of the war. Usually they are initiated by the side that believes it has strategic, operational, and/ or tactical advantage over the other. They only come to completion when one or both sides of the conflict decides it is no longer in their interest to continue. It is beyond naïve to believe that the participants of the conflict don’t maintain ongoing diplomatic communication.

    Overall, he fails to explain any iota of racism behind this flag. Instead he generally albeit poorly attempts to describe patriotism. Which is clear he deplores based on his “black-washing” of anything he remembers as patriotic.

    Finally, he vilifies the flag because, “Nixon’s people, however, spying opportunity, coopted the group, sometimes inventing chapters outright, to fan the propaganda flames.”.

    I only ask that he agrees to vilify another symbol that has equally been coopted by political opportunists for stoking propaganda flames — Black Lives Matter.

    Mr. Perlstein is an angry, sad, old man – who has lived a privileged life. I plan on sending him massive amounts of patriotic bumper stickers, and flags. Maybe he’ll get the hint to stop being a complete and utter A-hole.

    Reply
  13. Patrick

    When Vietnamese look at the pow/MIA flag they don’t immediately recognize it as racist like blacks do with the rebel flag. They probably don’t even know what it is. It is probably one of the least dangerous flags available. Your argument is petty, unrelatable, and poorly constructed.

    Reply
  14. Liberal Blog Declares POW/MIA Flag “Racist” - Wounded American Warrior

    […] Try not to cringe too much as you read the following garbage from Rick Perlstein at The Washington Spectator, where this article first appeared: […]

    Reply
  15. Chris K.

    Wow, If the Washington Spectator has a shred of real journalistic integrity left, you need to fire the dumbass that wrote this. You and Newsweek are laughing stocks.

    Reply
  16. jwbe

    Just wondering, Nixon started and finished the Vietnam war? Did I miss Kennedy? Johnson? I’m confused. As to the article, typical left wing tripe. I agree, just start spitting on the military again. We know that’s what all of you want to do, just can’t. Get it over with and admit who you are.

    Reply
  17. Jack

    As typical of those crying from the fringe this article is full of half baked assumptions without any clear and definitive point being made. We may not have anymore POW’s in Vietnam but we are still recovering remains from aircraft crashes and other operations in that country. Our South Vietnam “allies” may not have been perfect but neither were those in North Vietnam. Just ask John McCain about their treatment of him. As stated by a previous poster you make the claim that the flag is racist and you failed to prove this point in your article. Perhaps you need to return to journalism school and learn how to follow through on the topic you choose to write about.

    Reply
  18. Walter

    All Perlstein proves is that Hitler had the right idea, but he merely lacked ambition.

    Reply
  19. UpperMIdWest

    Racist? Yeah right! You forgot homophobic and misogynistic. An invention of Nixon? Those family groups were afraid that Nixon would throw the POWs under the bus in order to pull out, and they absolutely hated Kissinger. The author is just acting out, throwing out straw men, and false either/or scenarios. Just admit you hate America and everything it stands for. You are an intellectual and moral degenerate (common on the Left).

    Reply
  20. Sigurther

    And you just became a very unpopular person in the eyes of 21.8 million American veterans.

    Reply
  21. Kaffir al-Amriki

    UFB. You have insulted honorable veterans, including Senator John McCain, who lived it FIRST HAND. Why do I have the feeling you never served in the military, and hates America?

    Reply
  22. Dragan Krajisnik

    We should start putting people who write articles like this into camps.

    Reply
  23. Mike

    So, it’s racist because you don’t like it?

    By that logic, you, sir, are a racist and need to be fired.

    Or is this just click bait so you can peddle your pompous book?

    Maybe you should back up your arguments.

    Reply
  24. Brian

    And it’s trash like this “writer” that makes aliens not talk to us

    Reply
  25. Marc

    So, some hundreds of American aviators were shot down over Vietnam, thus sparing the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians who would have otherwise been bombed to smithereens. Is this a sad story? Yes, of course. It’s time we begin realizing that “Non-American lives matter too.” This black flag is a symbol of our refusal to acknowledge the harm caused ON OUR BEHALF by OUR soldiers to the Vietnamese. The sooner it’s taken down, the better.

    Reply
  26. John Gray

    Mr. Perlstien, I just want to say that as a Marine that served two years in Vietnam………….you can kiss my ass.

    Reply
  27. J.D. Farmer

    I proudly served in the post Vietnam era for your right to speak your opinion no matter how misguided it may be. Whatever purposes and for whatever propaganda that flag was created for, it has come to stand for a lot more for the families of missing servicemen (and women) in all wars.

    Your opinion does them a great disservice and I pray you never have to go through what they have gone through.

    In the end, one of the most important things I learned in the United States Marine Corps is that opinions are like “trash cans”.. Everyone has one, most of them stink.. Trash can is a metaphor for another word, and when you figure out what word that is, that’s you..

    Semper Fi Mac!

    Reply
  28. K Wallin

    “Sir,”
    I read your condemnation of your nation and the men and women who fought fer her.
    I have just one question: “Did you ever leave the security of your circle of friends/family/fellow travelers and put YOUR ass on the line in a life and death situation for a cause greater than yourself?” I doubt it, because your lies, vitriol and self-importance is indicative of someone who has never really put his ass on the line.
    I’m sure you will have some smug, venomous retort.

    Reply
  29. voter1126

    Isn’t it great that you are able to write and publish trash like this and not worry about being put in a prison to rot (be sure and thank a Vet). It is not just for one conflict it is a symbol for the men and women of all the conflicts. You must live in a very disturbed world and I have you will seek treatment.

    Reply
  30. kgdavenport

    Once again, leftist propaganda by a reliably asinine progressive who wants to re-fight a war now over for 42 years. It isn’t actually clear why this flag is racist, except for the fact that the brave men who are MIA or who ended up as POWs were “white” fighting a “yellow” people. Is that it? Only not all American soldiers, sailors and airmen were white! Many were black and hispanic! How do you explain that?

    Yes, I know that liberals want to project evil on to all US foreign policy decisions, and that we were the aggressors trying to oppress poor Vietnamese who just wanted to be “free”. Only once the war was over, millions were put forcibly into reeducation camps and thousands were murdered, and Saigon was turned into a communist city and SVN into a police state. Hard to break those tripes about “freedom fighters” and “nationalists” in the face of those inconvenient facts.

    So, yes, Vietnam was complex as all wars are. But so what? Those men who were drafted or joined the military risked their lives and many never came home. For those families it is the least we can do to remember them.

    Reply
  31. Kevin Conte

    Congratulations. You trolled the internet for today and you got to plug the crap out of that nonsense filled “book” that you wrote too. You win, Dick… Oh sorry. I meant, Rick. My bad.

    Reply
  32. Eric Scott Johnston

    My name is Eric Scott Johnston, I am the author of, The Glass Girls. I am not impressed with this work. My response to this will issue in due course.

    Reply
  33. Scott

    I may be a leftist/liberal/progressive/socialist/whatever-four-letter-word-you-want-to-call-me, but I do NOT approve of this editorial. Perlstein does not speak for me.

    Reply
  34. John

    Yep, this man knows his stuff. POWs were invented in Vietnam by the CIA. There weren’t any POWs in WWII or Korea. Bridge Over the River Kwai isn’t true.

    Pffft, not only is the flag racist, but so is anybody whoever became a POW or whose body was never…

    I can’t do it. This guy is such a troll he’s actually toxic. I would even wipe my ass with this printed feces.

    Reply
  35. kris

    rick you are a piece of work all our vets an honored military i hope you can sleep at night cause all your doing is being another obama puppet which you of all people should no what he has caused you guys are in more debt cause of him ill fly the pow flag here in Canada an i dare you to force me to take it down

    Reply
  36. Tammy

    Mr. Perlstein, I did a quick check to see if there was a SINGLE Perlstein on The Wall in DC. Nada. And I would say from the sound of your article, you got to have your father with you most of your formative years. Well, here’s a reality check for you. You have just insulted the memory of over 58,000+ men and women that served over there….and lot of them bled and died for your right to be an insensitive boob. So I will exercise my freedom of speech right and tell you that you are one of the worst sort of jerks…. Just so you know, I hope you truly appreciate your freedom of speech, because my father paid for it with his life….specifically his brains were blown out the back of his head so you could spout such offal. I have paid the price of your freedom of speech every day of my life, and will continue to do so til I die and can be reunited with my father. May Creator forgive your callous ignorance and heartlessness. Racist flag? Bah humbug. You, sir, are a pig.

    Reply
    • Joe

      There is a “Pearlstein” on the Wall, though I can understand why you may have missed it. DOB 4-18-49, age 20, which puts him at just the right age to be there.

      Reply
  37. Sid

    Hilarious how everyone flocked to the Newsweek when it was actually first published here. Anyway, Rick, you are ballsy as hell. Great piece, wish there were more solid sources of evidence to back some claims (to shut the reds up, but hey – it’s no like they’ll listen). Most of them won’t read the article even, just the headlines. Prepare for the backlash tomorrow; all the best of luck to you, good sir.

    Reply
    • duggymcdoogles

      LOL, you wish there were sources.. exactly

      Reply
    • Scott

      Touche’ on everybody flocking to the Newsweek article. It’s probably because Newsweek gave it a more sensational, “viral” bait headline.

      Reply
  38. Moderate

    This guy….the idea that a symbol means something to you gives you no right to project that meaning upon others. Perlstein, in my opinion, thinks far too highly of himself. However, beyond that, this illustrates why I had such a problem with the Confederate flag outrage. A symbol means something different to everyone. THAT is what matters. Not what YOU think the symbol means. A swastika was not always a symbol of hate. An American flag can inspire hope and fear in equal measure in certain circumstances. A cross means something different when you turn it upside down. The list of what symbols can mean is endless. To say that you have THE definitive answer as to how to define it is crude, small-minded, wrong, prideful, and, ultimately, harmful. Only totalitarians declare what a symbol should be and what should be done about it. The shootings in SC had nothing to do with a flag, but turn the flag into a symbol of hate and everyone rallies behind the idea of demonizing it in a mass media frenzy of a knee-jerk reaction. The POW flag means many things to differing people. I will say that to everyone who HAS served and said “I’m willing to take a bullet for the republic so that others can sit behind desks or in coffee shops and write whatever they want about my country, my flag, and my service” will almost universally state that this flag represents something noble in the spirit of those who serve their country. That it exemplifies what can be lost and forgotten if we let it and that we should never let go of those who have fallen behind. It is an honorable thing. You can look at anything and find some negative side…some distasteful element in the history of it or the creation of it that will suit your viewpoint. But what gives you the right, Mr. Perlstein, to claim that what the POW flag stands for to the hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women is wrong and that what you claim is the only right way to look at it? That’s not liberal, that’s not open minded….that’s just ridiculous.

    Reply
  39. Terri

    Shame on you for not understanding what you are writing about. When you are actually a family member of a service member known to be captured and not returned at Opertation Homecoming by the Viet Cong (and therefore actually Missing in Action, not figment of imagination but yes my Dad) you know the real deal, you get the updates from the DIA, the Service etc. You are only surfing the net… That flag you so freely disgrace matters to us and you need to get your head out of your ASS. I know the treatment that my father and his 2 crewmembers endured as one of the 4 of them escaped so keep fooling yourself that everything was all peachy, and the National League of Families, the Flag and anything really to do with POW/MiAs is in the scope of your comprehension/compassion/understanding.

    But my Wall sister said it better, you may have missed her posting, here it is again.

    Jill Hubbs “Shame on you, Rick Perlstein, for even daring to suggest that the POW/MIA flag is racist! That flag reminds AMERICANS that there are thousands of our military personnel still missing and unaccounted for, including my father and his three crew mates who became missing during a flight over North Vietnam in 1968. In 1970, Mrs. Michael Hoff, whose husband was missing in Vietnam, designed that flag so that people would not forget that there were men who were being held prisoner, men who were missing, and their families wanted to be sure that they were not FORGOTTEN. That flag was and remains a reminder to our nation’s leaders and our government to KEEP THE PROMISE to leave no one behind.

    In the late 60s, my family identified a man in a North Vietnamese propaganda film as my father. In 1987, we were informed of a live sighting report of my father from a source deemed credible by the Defense Intelligence Agency. I traveled to Vietnam in 1993 and was given documents in Hanoi that indicated my father had been in the hands of the North Vietnamese at some point even though they had always denied any knowledge of my father and his crew.
    And just before I went to Vietnam, Mrs. Hoff came to my house and brought me pictures of her husband and asked me with tears in her eyes if I would please try to see if I could find any information about her husband.

    That flag represents the tears and grief of the POW/MIA families, friends and the soldiers who served with the prisoners and missing. It serves to remind all Americans of the cost of war. It also is a reminder that families need, want and deserve closure and that we will NEVER FORGET.

    A few years ago, I attended a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery of a crew of 14 who had been missing for decades in Vietnam. An American team with the Joint Pacific Accounring Command had discovered the crash site of their C-130 in Vietnam and recovered their remains. Through DNA, the crew was positively identified and they were buried with full military honors at Arlington. There were fourteen families in attendance and the POW/MIA flag was displayed by the American flag. The ceremony was a sad one, but there was pride that America had kept her promise and commitment to those men that they would not be left behind.

    I was a little girl when my father’s plane disappeared. That black and white flag represented hope to me that my father might be coming home. It represented a promise that Americans would not forget about these men. And now it represents faith that those who remain missing will one day be accounted for just like the crew of 14 buried at Arlington.
    I really have no words for you, Rick Perlstein. And if you had a family member who had been held as a prisoner of war or who was still missing, I know that you would have never written your words.”

    Reply
    • Mike

      Excellent comments. I would share my sympathies with you for having to grow up without a father present. And to know that there were sightings of your father …and the North Vietnamese lied and obfuscated about many of the POWs is certainly frustrated.

      BUT – unfortunately, the author of the article is a committed leftist who probably celebrated with South Vietnam fell, after being abandoned by the likes of Ted Kennedy and Congress, unwilling to fulfill the commitments of the Paris Peace Accords. The author would be like Jane Fonda – who declared that if you knew what communism was about, you would be on your knees praying for communism. The author doesn’t mind that a few (million) people were oppressed, hundreds of thousands killed in the name of the greater communism good, etc. So he would not have an understanding of your comments or concerns. He is a hard core leftist who believes that evil is good, and good is evil. He probably supports the Iran ‘treaty’ that isn’t a treaty, and if/when Iran gets and uses the bomb, he will look on it as a good progression to humbling the US. He is scum.

      Reply
  40. Brett

    So, I am not exactly sure what the purpose of this article was. Despite the title the author makes now linkage to how the flag is racist. He simply argues that Vietnam was wrong, a popularly held belief. The war was 40 years ago, why are we rehashing this again? It is truly bizarre.

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  41. Maktesh

    Mr. Perlstein, it is undoubtedly clear that the only thing you have ever likely served is a Big Mac. This article, and your opinion, is so full crap that its very odor leaks out from behind your teeth.

    It’s a good thing that freedom of speech (which, ironically, I image you oppose based on your political ideology) exists here in the USA. If it didn’t, I’d rally to have you deported to Vietnam. Of course, they way you’d have it, your very desire is that they’d won the war anyway.

    One journalist to another; you, sir, are disgusting and are unworthy of being called an American.

    Reply
  42. Mike P

    You Sir, are full of shit. Have a nice day.

    Reply
  43. Randy

    Hey you race baiting P.O.S.! Now I’m a racist because my Grandpa was never recovered and I fly that flag? So now I’m a target too? You are a typical liberal punk trying to get clicks,and you got one.BITCH

    Reply
  44. Jerry Tomberlin

    Mr. Perlstein,
    As a proud veteran of the United States Military i was offended by your comments about the POW/MIA flag.
    I was tempted to lash out as my veteran brothers have done, but then i remind myself that one of the basic freedoms
    that we served for was your freedom of speech. My brothers in arms are just that Brothers we were not forced into
    service like our brothers before us we volunteered to serve this once great country and we all would like them to
    come home just as their families do, the flag is a reminder to us that we still have brothers out there that still need to
    be home and/or laid to rest to give their families closure. in closing please choose your battles and your words carefully
    in the future, and try not to direct it towards our country’s veterans, we served with pride when we were there and we
    are still proud of our service as we grow older, thank you for listening.

    Jerry Tomberlin
    Disabled Veteran
    U.S. Navy 84-90

    Reply
  45. Ben Thompson

    Sir, your article speaks of racism however essentially nowhere in the article do you actually tackle that issue and instead use ‘racism’ in our already highly charged society as click-bait which by itself is sad. Then your loose argument glosses over the fact this flag (and meaning) have expanded to all US Wars before and after as shown with the flag flying over the Korean War Veterans Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. Would you say presidents and politicians since Nixon on both sides have exploited this movement?

    Overall your argument is very weak and doesn’t actually piece together facts but merely scrapes thoughts together to support an opinion piece of your personal view. Relating this to the Confederate Flag issue is very poor from a journalistic side.

    Reply
  46. Ethan Rogati

    As the son-in-law of a veteran of Vietnam, who has seen the affects of that war on him and his family, the idea that by flying a POW-MIA flag, you’re some sort of racist, is beyond ridiculous.

    As many seem eager to remind us, America (the United States, by the way, lest we exclude Canada and Mexico) is a place where whites are evil and everyone not white are victims.

    When did “American” become a race?

    Reply
  47. Robert

    You miss an important economic element to the MIA story: pay, benefits, and special benefits continued to MIA families that were worth more and could continue longer than for those designated KIA. Many pilots known to be killed by their wingmen were declared MIA when the wingmen hedged their reports to benefit their buddy’s families.

    Reply
  48. John

    What an idiot!!!!! This guy must be a junior political writer for a local news flyer right????

    Reply
  49. Joe Schmuccatelli

    The Air Force should give this useless jerk Perlstein a parachute and throw him out of an aircraft over ISIS. Then we can add him to the MIA list. What a dirt bag.

    Reply
  50. Ryan D Ford

    I cant believe people like you live in this nation that you spit on and bash, just to help sell some liberal pile of monkey crap book. Spread the anit-American hate dick weed…the douche is strong with you

    Reply
  51. Ron Brown

    As a Vietnam/Combat twice wounded vet that was also dusted off for malaria and jungle rot, I won`t waste any time attempting to be civil and explain to some panty assed twerp that wouldn`t have the guts to step on a piss ant how he is wrong. I will say if I ever meet you on a sidewalk, you better step off so I can get by…

    Reply
  52. James Steyr

    …..This is an article that has NO business even being written, and is PURE GARBAGE!! (and inciteful)

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  53. mike

    Cheap way to plug your book. You know what they say abut opinions. Im sure you were wrapped up all nice and cozy in your Hammer and sickle blanket and your laptop laying on your Karl Marx manifesto hoping to channel its energy while you daydreamed about all the books your going to sell.

    Reply
  54. Adam

    Wow! What a crock of sh*t! Blaming a flag forwhat? Claims its racist, goes on to describe a bunch of screwed up stuff, backed by WHAT facts, where’s the references? But never says what it’s racist against? Vietnam war was screwed up in all aspects anyway, we all know that, even in the political side.
    Right now what we need to do is go back to being th he UNITED States of America again. Stop calling this flag or that flag or whatever racist. Stop creating special interest groups. Grow up, get along. The more you talk about racism and looking for it and pointing it out, guess what? You just making it worse. The one thing people have to understandi s that someone somewhere is always going to be offended bys something. I’m all for offending the fewest possible, but now its getting so that whole thing is getting offensivei in itself. It’s not always in the best interest of our cou try to always cower and bow to theminority or the slight few that are. There are more people to consider than those few, not ignore them totally, but come on.

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  55. James

    We should get rid of the Thanksgiving holiday because the holiday is racist against Native American’s and the rest of the world. And Christmas because it’s racist against all religions outside of judaeo christian beliefs. Lets see, lets see, get rid of Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, etc. You know what? Let’s just get rid of the American flag too, because it’s racist against the British, since we won the Revolution… I believe Rick Perlstein is a raciest because he’s anti-flag!

    Reply
  56. Calvin

    I can’t believe this guy gets paid to write this crap. He needs to be fired and escorted across our borders.It’s hard to believe sometimes we put our lives on the line so people have the right to speak their mind and publish crap like this!
    God Bless All Military members, current and retired.
    U.S. Air Force Veteran 24 Years

    Reply
  57. John Edward Hill

    This is the most profane, inaccurate piece of so-called investigative journalism I have ever read. The POW/MIA flag is somehow racist because it vilifies the Vietnamese…because of American war crimes, atrocities, and other such claims that have been made. I do not know anything about you Mr. Perlstein, but I can bet you fall into one of the following categories: spit on Vietnam vets as they returned why you cut class on your one of several deferments. Or you were too young and went to some socialist institution like Columbia to learn (albeit very poor) journalistic skills. Or you were just an outright coward, someone you can cast aspersions against your country at will (even when your facts are so incredibly wrong) because you have probably never loved anything other than yourself and your so called career. While I believe many would agree that Nixon was probably one of the most astute politicians we have ever had, and he I am sure used these groups to his advantage as any politicians would, he had nothing to do with their formation and never trivialized the plight of the POWs and those MIA (yeah,chow do you account for folks who’s status is unknown and there were many, that is where MIA came from). As a matter of fact Nixon authorized the first and only raid into N. Vietnam with the mission of rescuing POWs (Operation KINGPIN) outside of Hanoi. It was a dangerous yet bold mission that ended in failure cause the NVA moved the prisoners at the last minute. It did have the effect of consolidating all held POWs and some unknown status MIAs to listed prisons within Hanoi. To read your deeply cynical and clearly unpatriotic piece of dribble you would think only Americans committed war crimes during Vietnam…how bout the relentless torture of POWs, failure to provide adequate food and medicine, which in several cases led to the death of the POW (Capt Lance Sijan, MOH, comes to mind). Finally your assertion that Medal of Honor recipient ADM James Stockdale was not a hero shows your total ignorance of the military, the courage and discipline he displayed far beyond what was acceptable. Your comparison to the “Peace Committee” also demonstrates a total lack of historical context. Those POWs either directly collaborated with the enemy, ratted on their fellow POWs to earn favors or returned before their time was due. They were held in utter contempt by those who adhered to the codes of conduct. Only those POWs returned with honor, the others returned in shame and I hope they still live with that shame every day, as you should every day for writing this piece of trash. And by the way it was customary right up until the U.S. Civil War to conduct routine prisoner exchanges during conflicts not at the end of it. Check your facts, your history, and your political hatred.

    Reply
  58. Corporal Ricciardi - USMC

    Join the call to push advertisers of this site and newsweek.com (who reposted this article) to drop these websites from their campaigns. The only language they understand is their bottom line, and while free speech is one of the things we fight to defend, that doesn’t mean you may speak freely without fear of consequence for your actions. True, you should never be legally tried for exercising your right to free speech, but when you’re in business and you’re out to make money, offending your readers with baseless sensationalism should be treated exactly as it deserves. Find the advertisers and contact them. Boycott the products of the companies that help fund this blatant disrespect of America and its troops.

    Semper Fi

    Reply
  59. Patrick in Michigan

    Get bent liberal jewish dog

    Reply
  60. Mark Ostrander Veteran of USMC Vice Commander of American Legion Post 468

    It is incomprehensible that a well know and respected media outlet like yours would even have the nerve to publish and endorse this article regarding the POW/MIA flag as a sign of racism. Lets fuel the fire that is already burning in our country regarding true racism. I am really having a hard time even saying the name Rick Perlstein; without anger burning inside me. His face, glasses, beard, and general lack of moral character offends me. He is the face of racism and discontent in this country. I dare anyone to try to take down my POW?MIA flag at my house, my employment, my legion, or anywhere else. Myself and the hundreds of thousands of veterans and our current men and woman of the military will not stand for it. Mr Perlstein your a terrorist living in our country that gives you the freedom of expression. Your views are only to insight violence against Americans against Americans. You want to divide our unity for your personal gain. To insight and to divide you are committing an act of terrorism. Screw you, screw your family, screw your views. Please come and try to take down my Flags. I have sworn an Oath to Defend The Constitution of the United States of America against all Enemies Both Foreign and Domestic; so please stop by.

    Reply
  61. Joe

    First – to Tammy. There is a “Pearlstein” on the Wall, though I can understand why you may have missed it. DOB 4-18-49, age 20, which puts him at just the right age to be there.
    I don’t think it’s racist, though maybe it was used in a nationalist, arguably racist manner as Nixon tried to spin the war. But that’s decades in the past. Of all the ways politics and media exploit the armed forces, nowadays the POW/MIA flag is one of the ones I see very little. That said I don’t appreciate the way politicians pander to vets and their families.
    The thing that scares and angers me is how Nixon made up a thousand unnamed soldiers and used them as an excuse for his flaccid diplomacy while our actual troops died out there and worse. Whether you believe the stuff about the south and the CIA is arbitrary. The men and women we send out there are not bargaining chits for a political game back home. That’s an unforgivable breach of trust.
    Did the author choose this headline? If so, he should be ashamed, if only on journalistic standards – there was little if any attention given to backing up the claim of racism. If I had to wager, though, I’d say that headline was written after the fact by the curator/editor here at this site for the sheer sake of being sensational. In either case, it’s a cheap shot that not only diminishes the injustices of the war (on either side you choose to see it) but also totally fails to report on the one group that actually could justifiably invoke the label of racist – the Vietnamese! Did he even talk to a single Vietnamese person about the war before writing this? Do they see the flag as racist? This is such a glaring omission that I’m quite dubious that the race angle had anything to do with the original op-ed.

    Reply
  62. Jesse

    My initial thoughts were too obscene to write, I will simply say you are an arrogant self righteous imbecile. Yes, everyone with an ounce of education and intellect knows the origins of the flag were not founded in complete truths. That does not mean in more advanced and educated society it is not recognized as a reminder of the human toll of war, not only for those who served in Vietnam, but all of America’s conflicts. Your failure to recognize that reveals your clear bias and renders your arguments to a value on par with a drunken bar room debate.

    Reply
  63. pwb

    I think many of these comments just underscore how successfully US popular and political discourse have re-cast the US military as a righteous victim/underdog (first in the war in Vietnam, and now more generally as well).
    I can’t help but think of the brave veterans who share their stories in the 1974 documentary Hearts and Minds. Those men who perpetrated the atrocities at My Lai, for example, can’t un-see the overwhelming power and violence of imperialism. They look back on the lopsidedness of that war with shock and horror — haunted not by what was done to them, but what they were made to do.
    Thanks so much for this important piece, Mr. Perlstein. I’m looking forward to reading the book!

    Reply
  64. 50 IQ > Rick Perlstein

    As long as leftists in America have colossal imbeciles like this bearded bag of human waste named Rick Perlstein, they will continually represent devolution, rather than ‘progress’. If Rick Perstein even had 2 brain cells knocking together, he would be intelligent enough to avoid writing stupidity like this. The particles of food stuck in his beard have more basis of fact than the stench that emanates from his vacuous cranial cavity.

    Reply
  65. Bill

    Hey, douchebag! ‘Nuff said.

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  66. William A Reich, Sr

    The author of this diatribe is obviously a total idiot & so completely out of touch with reality that he has one foot in a Mental Institution & the other foot on a banana peel. COMPLETELY UNBELIEVABLE! I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that he sat in airports waiting for soldiers to return from their combat deployment to spit on them & scream names at them ….. either that or he fled to Canada to avoid being drafted ….. oh wait, he wasn’t born until 1969 & wouldn’t remember anything that occurred duting that period of our History ….. It’s obvious that this FOOL doesn’t have a clue, is a card carrying, far left wing liberal whiner ….. in other words, a COWARD.

    Reply
  67. Chris

    Mr. Pearlstein, the best part of you must have run down the inside of your mother’s leg. Since it is quite unlikely that you will ever change please do the following three things:
    1) Unwad your panties
    2) Sit down
    3) Shut the fuck up

    Thank you very much.

    Reply
  68. William C. Bradshaw

    Perlstein, the “pearl of Washington wisdom” is a truly a “piece of work” and most definitely not in a positive sense.
    He seems to be mentally obsessed with “flags” (yet clueless as hell) — and most likely he embraces a white flag of surrender. I could tell him where he should place that white flag on his pompously-protected body — but I will refrain.
    If the eventuality ever came to pass — I’d like to see him look straight in the eyes of that 18-year-old female who’s saving his egomaniacal butt — and deny his strong fear of bravery and courage..

    Reply
  69. PAVet

    This idiot needs to be fired! I don’t even understand why this story was published. To all the VNV’s out there welcome home my brothers and thank you for your service.

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  70. Richard Motroni

    Recently I had bought Mr. Perlstein’s book “Nixonland” because from the reviews it seemed like the author was intelligent and thoughtful. Upon reading this column, it is obvious that Mr. Perlstein is neither intelligent nor thoughtful, but a mean, hateful, self-righteous fraud of the lowest order. This is article is juvenile at best and at worst spits in the face of every American POW. Mr. Perlstein, the joy you displayed while dancing over the graves of the vets and POW is disgraceful. Shame on you for being so heartless and vile. When I get home from work, I will be throwing you book into the trash. Fortunately I bought your book in an used book store or at least they, not you, will be keeping my payment. Go to hell.

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  71. Grover Wright

    You have freakin’ ruined my day!! I have never read such a worthless, inflammatory piece in years. I have not been so angry in years! You son can put your ass on some plane to somewhere outside this country. The flag stays. The flag is about our brothers who did not come home and are not accounted for. Bulls**t on everything you wrote…racist my ass. You wouldn’t know it if it hit you square in the face! “Cavalier 24″ Charlie Troop, 1/9 Cav, first Cav Div 1969-70 Vietnam

    Reply
  72. John Browning

    Perlstein, you have a vivid imagination that serves your sick, twisted views well. I find it nauseating that good people gave their lives to defend your freedom to write such dribble.

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  73. epows

    SCREW YOU GO MIA RUSSIA NEEDS ANOTHER PATSY

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  74. Randy Pennington, II

    You are a fucking idiot that represents your mother’s missed abortion opportunity

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  75. Radar

    You have got to be the biggest IDIOT in the world. It’s people like you that put America in the state that it is in now. You must not have ever served in the military otherwise you would know what the POW/MIA flag is all about. Why don’t you keep your stupid comments to yourself and quit trying to cause more turmoil in our already messed up state that we are in. IDIOT is the cleanest word I can find to describe your dumb a$$!!

    Reply

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