[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 79 (Thursday, May 21, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1250]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN TRIBUTE TO NEWT HEISLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JANE HARMAN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 21, 2009

  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, displayed prominently in my district 
office is an autographed medal featuring the POW/MIA flag. It was given 
to me and signed by Newt Heisley, the designer of the famous image. The 
black-and-white flag is a symbol of a Nation's gratitude, respect and 
commitment to those who never came back. In 1998, legislation I 
authored was signed into law mandating that the flag be flown above 
Federal buildings on six days a year, including Veterans and Memorial 
Day. We will never forget.
  Newt Heisley died on May 18, at 88. He led a rich life committed to 
serving his country, to family, and to his artistic passion--forces 
that would ultimately inform the design of his seminal work.
  In the early 1940s, after graduating from Syracuse University with a 
Fine Arts degree, Heisley joined the Army Air Forces--where he served 
heroically as a pilot in the Pacific Theatre in World War II.
  After the war, Heisley put his artistic talent to work, joining an 
advertising agency in New Jersey--where he lived with his wife, Bunny, 
and son, Jeffrey. Hoping to follow in his father's footsteps, Jeffrey 
entered Marine Corps training but returned emaciated and sick with 
hepatitis.
  Soon after his son's homecoming in 1971, Heisley was tasked with 
designing a flag for the National League of Families of American 
Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia. Heisley settled on a 
silhouette of a gaunt man, barbed wire and guard tower. Below that, he 
wrote ``You are not forgotten.''
  To Heisley's surprise, the flag became a national icon. In 1988, it 
flew over the White House for the first time, and in 1990, Congress 
adopted it as the official symbol of appreciation for POWs and MIAs.
  Despite the newfound fame, Heisley kept his humility. ``I did it for 
the men who were prisoners of war or missing in action. They're the 
real heroes,'' he told the Denver Post in 2002, the same year he wrote 
his autobiography, Faith Under Fire.
  This Memorial Day, I will be thinking of them--and Newt Heisley. In 
words of my dear friend Dave Albert, the former Lomita Councilman, 
whose failed attempt to get his local post office to fly the POW/MIA 
flag inspired the 1998 law, Heisley ``was a true patriot for the POW/
MIA cause, and he will never be forgotten.''

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