Created by a Los Angeles conservative student group called VIVA (Voices in Vital America), nearly 5 million POW bracelets were sold between 1970 and 1973. The idea was to raise public awareness about the plight of Americans held prisoner or missing in Vietnam. Sold for around $2.50 (equivalent to about $19 in 2024), celebrities such as Bob Hope, Cher, and John Wayne donned the nickel-plated or copper bracelets, vowing to keep them on until “their” servicemember came home, dead or alive.

Kathy Strong’s bracelet bore the name of SFC James Moreland, an Alabama-born high school football star. Moreland became a Green Beret medic and went missing in February 1968 when a North Vietnamese regiment overran Lang Vei Special Forces Camp near South Vietnam’s border with Laos, during the Tet Offensive.

Twenty-two men who fought in the Battle of Lang Vei received medals for valor, including Moreland who was awarded a Silver Star. His commanding officer, 1st Lt. Paul Longgrear, last saw the seriously wounded Moreland while he was trying to prevent a machine gun from falling into enemy hands. At age 22, Moreland was listed as Missing in Action.

“My promise was to wear [the bracelet] until he came home,” said Strong, who lives in Northern California. “I really believed he was going to come home.”

But when Strong returned to school for eighth grade, almost all her classmates had removed their bracelets. By then, the Paris Peace Accords had ended direct U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Operation Homecoming had brought nearly 600 American prisoners of war home, including three captured during the Battle of Lang Vei. As the conflict faded from the headlines, POW bracelets ceased production and largely vanished.

Yet neither James Moreland nor his remains had been repatriated, so Kathy Strong kept wearing her bracelet. “I grew up in a Christian home,” she explained. “I believed that God answers all prayers, and I was just going to keep praying.” When she grew discouraged after a couple of years, she wrote to VIVA, and they sent her a short biography of Moreland and a photo.

“He had such an intense look in his eyes,” Strong said. “It was like his eyes were just looking right into the deepest parts of my soul, just saying ‘please don’t forget me.’” She would continue to wear her POW bracelet for 38 years.