Vietnam veteran spreads awareness of POW/MIAs

From: Vietnam veteran spreads awareness of POW/MIAs
CEDAR CITY - Retired Navy Capt. Ron Lewis wears a sterling silver bracelet with the names of three friends who served with him on-board aircraft carrier USS Ranger during the Vietnam War. The names represent three of seven who were missing in action from the USS Ranger. They are the ones who have not been found.

"I will not give up until they, and all the missing, are found," Lewis said during a POW/MIA recognition program sponsored by Southern Utah University ROTC.
Lewis gives his presentation all across the country hoping to help Americans remember "the cost of freedom."

"I will go anywhere anytime to help people remember," Lewis said. "I want to show people that there is that link between them and the missing."

That link was in the forefront of Andrew Franklin's mind during the presentation. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Franklin said that every Vietnam veteran has friends missing in action.

"Everyone in the United States knows a Vietnam vet," Franklin said. "Every vet knows someone who is MIA or a POW. Everyone in the states has that connection."

Franklin said that he was glad to watch the presentation because it helped show that the United States government is working hard to find his missing in action friends.
"It's hard," Franklin said with tears in his eyes. "You have to move forward with your life when you know we left people behind. People forget or just don't think. I'm glad that the government is still working hard."

According to Lewis, 32 MIA solders have been returned in the past 24 months.
"No country on earth is working as hard to bring home the missing as the United States," Lewis said. "It is we who send these brave Americans into harms way. We promised them that we would bring them home. We Ðall of us- are sentinels of that promise."

"I never thought about it. I knew about it but I didn't think about it," said Jennifer Collins, a freshman at SUU studying communications. "I'm glad I went to the presentation."

Lewis's presentation documented the story of four out of the 73,792 members of the armed forces from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, the Gulf War and Iraq. As POW/MIA recognition day is Sept. 16, Lewis made a plea that people hang the POW/MIA flag beneath the American flag to "remember the promise to bring the missing home."

"Take a moment to look at how the smaller POW/MIA flag is linked to the bottom of the American flag," Lewis said. "Let it be a reminder of our promise. We must not Ðwe must not- forget the lost."

SUU's ROTC will hold a special POW/MIA flag rising at the flagpole in front of the Sorensen Physical Education building at 6 a.m. on Sept. 16.