This first picture is famous. Every time I see a flag with this image on it, I think of the things worse than death that have happened to some of our soldiers. Last spring I decided I had to know more. I started reading on websites the first-hand stories of those who were captured. Because I was writing a book about the 1970s I focused on the Vietnam POW and MIA. I wanted to write of a fictional soldier who was a POW and experienced some of the horrors the men went through. The stories haunted me and some of the things that happened to them were so bad I couldn't write them into a book that has a rating for younger readers as well as adults.
Telling bits of these stories put a face on these men for me. I know that I could never really know the pain and suffering each day held, but appreciation for all of our soldiers grew in my heart from doing this research. I wanted to write about how the people from the area of the USA where I live, care about what they went through and always held them in their prayers. We love our soldiers and feel bad for the families of those who never knew what happened to their loved ones and also for those whose loved ones died serving our country.
This is picture that my great niece posted on Facebook. (She is Ambera, the little baby on the end in her mama's arms.) I think the man on the far left is my sister's brother-in-law.(Her husband's brother) The lady next to him is my eldest sister, Donna Mae. The little girl in the middle held by her sailor daddy is Libby, another great niece. The sailor is my oldest nephew, David. The lady next to him is his grandmother. The lady holding the baby is his wife.
This picture takes me back to the 1970s. When I told my sons I was writing a modern day book they asked me about it. I told them the action started in 1974. They let me know that was almost 40 years ago and not necessarily modern. I beg to differ, but I see where they are coming from. Isn't it funny that it doesn't seem so long ago, but it is?
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