Friday, September 18, 2026, is National POW/MIA Recognition Day — always the third Friday of September. American Legion Post 38 in Floresville, Texas, joins the Legion Family nationwide in a national observance. This page does not invent a Post ceremony. It names the day, the flag, and the duty: those who were captured, those still missing, and the families who wait are not forgotten.
The first National POW/MIA Recognition Day was observed in 1979 after a proclamation by President Jimmy Carter. The date later settled on the third Friday of September, where it has remained. Each year the President issues a proclamation. Americans are asked to pause, to fly the POW/MIA flag, and to remember that accounting for the missing is unfinished work.
The black-and-white flag that marks the day is the emblem of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. It was designed in 1971 by Newt Heisley, a World War II veteran and commercial artist, after the League sought a symbol that families could rally around. The League's board approved the design in January 1972. No copyright or trademark was sought, so the flag could travel as far as the cause required. A silhouette bows before a guard tower and a strand of barbed wire. Above: POW ★ MIA. Below: YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN.
In 1989 the flag was installed in the United States Capitol Rotunda — the only flag other than the Stars and Stripes ever displayed there in that way. Public Law 101-355, enacted in 1990, recognized it as a symbol of the Nation's concern and commitment to the fullest possible accounting. The National POW/MIA Flag Act of 2019 requires that it fly at specified federal properties on every day the United States flag is displayed.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency continues that accounting from every American war. The numbers change as remains are identified and as families receive answers. The duty does not change. Post 38 will not invent local names of the missing for this column. We will say what is true in Floresville: Post 38 flies the POW/MIA flag with the colors. Pause there. Fly the flag at home on the eighteenth. Make a Buddy Check to a veteran or family member you know. Show them you care.
Friday, September 18, is also the birthday of the United States Air Force, established as a separate service on September 18, 1947. We will have cake at the Post to celebrate those veterans from the U.S. Air Force. Two observances can share a date without competing. One asks us to remember those who did not come home. The other marks a service that has flown, fought, and lost people of its own.
If the day sits heavy, stay with a comrade. The rest of the work is quieter: a flag flown correctly, a name remembered, a chair saved at the second-Thursday meeting or the third-Thursday Tailgate. You are not forgotten is a promise. Post 38 intends to keep it.
Post 38 – You Are Not Forgotten.