Bracelets to remember our soldiers (Timothy Ayres)

The bracelets are cuff-style. They come in a number of colors and can be made of a number of materials: silver, stainless steel, aluminum, copper. They are engraved and go by many names, depending on their exact reason for being: memorial bracelets, KIA bracelets, POW/MIA bracelets, hero bracelets.

They have been used to commemorate police officers killed in the line of duty, victims of terrorist attacks, victims of domestic violence. But most of all, they are used to commemorate members of the military: those killed (KIA stands for “killed in action”), captured as prisoners of war (POW) or missing in action (MIA).

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I’ll Always Be There (Dennis Thompson)

It’s been nearly 50 years since Dennis Thompson was captured by North Vietnamese forces as a prisoner of war. But he still sees the black enclosed room with no light where they kept him. For five years — he counted 1,864 days — the Vietnamese imprisoned him, 850 days of

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POW leaves his mark (George McSwain)

Debbie Haney first saw George McSwain when she was five. Haney was watching a 1973 newscast of Operation Homecoming when she saw McSwain’s face flash across the television screen. She remembers asking her father why the man looked so angry. He told her that McSwain had been a prisoner of

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Glenn Myers to speak at Spring Hill veterans service

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Kevin McManus, 65; Vietnam War POW

Kevin McManus, 65, an Air Force pilot shot down over North Vietnam who spent nearly six years as a prisoner of war and later retired as a lieutenant colonel, died of lung cancer July 31 at his home in Oakton. Two weeks before he was scheduled to leave Vietnam, and

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