In the early 1970s, millions of Americans bought and wore metal bracelets inscribed with the name of one American who was missing in action or a POW in Vietnam. Those bracelets were the project of Carol Bates Brown, who was a student at what is now Cal State Northridge and a member of the conservative student group Voices in Vital America (VIVA).
Over the years, many who wore the bracelets got in touch with "their" POW if they returned from the war, or their survivors. The L.A. Times talked with several veterans who were contacted and the civilians who sought them out. Some have stayed in touch for many years. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)
PS: The POW whose bracelet I wore has never been found.
Brown became national chairwoman of the bracelet campaign for VIVA and worked six days a week, from morning to midnight. "My mother would find me asleep in my bed covered with checks and bank deposit slips," she said. She eventually dropped out of school.
"There was something about a specific name being on them," said Brown, 62, who went on to work on POW/MIA issues for the nonprofit National League of Families and later for the Pentagon. "People made a personal connection — 'I'm watching out for this guy.'"
The plight of the POWs gave people a way to separate their feelings toward policymakers from their feelings toward those who fought in the war — a shift in public attitude still evident today. Whatever people think of U.S. policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the troops remains strong.
Over the years, many who wore the bracelets got in touch with "their" POW if they returned from the war, or their survivors. The L.A. Times talked with several veterans who were contacted and the civilians who sought them out. Some have stayed in touch for many years. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times)
PS: The POW whose bracelet I wore has never been found.
Comments (5)
Yes, we should.
sm.
I think we should save them if we can, because they are a unique and incredible animal. Isn't that enough reason?
Taken from Wikipedia:
400 to 450 North Atlantic Right Whales live in the North Atlantic;
50-100 North Pacific Right Whales live in the eastern North Pacific and perhaps 200-300 more in the Sea of Okhotsk;
12,000 Southern Right Whales are spread throughout the southern part of the Southern Hemisphere;
9,000–10,000 Bowhead Whales (Aka Greenland Right Whale) are distributed entirely in the Arctic Ocean and sub-polar seas.
There will still be Right whales out there, if the North Atlantic Right Whales disapear. Save their genetic information as best we can, and salute them goodbye, IMO.
If a species is going extinct naturally, then we should let it die out – as attempting to stave off extinction of such a thing is as damaging to the natural order of things as killing off a species that is not dying out naturally.
Adaption tends to take little time as it is a change in populations actions. ( that is: Colonialist adapted to the new england climate in a generation, by changing their actions)
Evolution takes generations and depends on the speed at which a species generates new generations. So ecoli will evolve faster than a Right Whale.
@drake123
I don't think it's possible to say how we would have turned out if we imposed current policies and ideals on our past selves. One could argue if we had the feelings toward the whale as we do now we wouldn't have had appropriate lubrication for motors that drove the industrial revolution. But one could also argue that human are highly inventive and they would have developed other lubrication.
Conservation is the ultimate conservatism.