Bracelet keeps MIA on Norfolk man?s mind for 25 years

[thedrifter]

Bracelet keeps MIA on Norfolk man?s mind for 25 years

By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
? November 10, 2003

CHESAPEAKE ? When Steve Blum paid $2 in 1978 for a POW/MIA bracelet to honor Vietnam-era servicemen, he was told to wear it until the person came home.

?I wore it when it was a fad,? Blum said. ?I wore it when it wasn?t a fad. I wore it when I got in trouble. I wore it with my uniform, even when I was told not to because it was nonmilitary.?

For 25 years, Blum, of Norfolk, wore the simple metal bracelet ? one of 5 million that flooded the nation beginning on Veterans Day 1970 ? engraved with the name of ?AD2 Michael L. Roberts,? a 23-year-old petty officer second class from Purvis, Miss., who had been declared missing in action in 1968. Roberts was an aviation ordnanceman.

Blum never took the bracelet off until this past August, when he learned that Roberts? remains had been found in Laos and identified. It was more than three decades since he had been declared missing.

?It was really hard to give up the bracelet,? Blum said. ?You wear something so long, you know. For the longest time, I had a tan line around my wrist.?

Blum, 43, now a car salesman at Priority Chevrolet in Chesapeake, was in the Navy in the mid-1980s.

A radar operator for four years, he served aboard the amphibious transport dock Raleigh and helped support Marines ashore in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1984.


Blum also was a Coast Guard reservist and a Norfolk sheriff?s deputy for 20 years.

All the while, Blum wore the bracelet. ?To me it was a pact, a deal I had made, and I always keep my word,? he said. ?Being a vet myself, the whole idea was not to forget them. Too many people do.?

Using the Internet, Blum located Roberts? niece, Kim Kroeze, in Ridgeland, Miss., after hearing Roberts? remains had been found. Blum told her how long he had worn the bracelet and said that, according to custom, he would like to send it to her.

He mailed it, along with a letter, on Aug. 23.

?It was awesome, really remarkable,? Kroeze said last week by telephone, adding that she was surprised anyone would wear the bracelet for so long.

Susie Hester of Jackson, Miss., one of Roberts? sisters, said: ?He?s just a great patriot to think enough of our servicemen, to be so diligent and wear it all these years. There are a lot of Americans like that.?

Hester has another MIA bracelet bearing her brother?s name that a man in Atlanta sent to her after Roberts? remains were identified. A third bracelet also was returned and is being kept by Roberts? aircraft squadron.

Roberts volunteered to serve in the Navy after attending college, Hester said. He never married and had been in the Navy about three years before he was declared missing.

Roberts was one of nine crew members aboard a Navy OP-2E Neptune aircraft that took off from Nakhon Phanom Royal Thailand Air Force Base on a classified mission on Jan. 11, 1968.

Members of a secret squadron, VO-67, that was based in Thailand, they were to drop sensors that detect enemy movements.

During its last radio contact, the crew reported that it was descending through dense clouds. The plane never returned, and a search found no evidence of a crash.

Two weeks later, an Air Force crew photographed what appeared to be the crash site, but enemy activity in the area prevented a recovery operation.

Between 1993 and 2002, six U.S.-Laotian investigation teams interviewed villagers in the surrounding area, gathered aircraft debris and surveyed the purported crash site, scattered on 2-mile-high ledges of Phou Louang Mountain in Khammouan Province.

During a 1996 visit, team members also recovered identification cards of several crew members as well as human remains.

Full-scale recovery missions by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in 2001 and 2002 yielded additional remains, as well as identification of other crew members and the squadron?s mascot dog, Snoopy.

The crew was buried June 18 in Arlington National Cemetery.

More than 1,900 Americans are still missing in action from the Vietnam War, with another 86,000 missing after the Cold War, the Korean War and World War II.

?So now my deal is complete,? Blum wrote to Roberts? family. ?Let it be known Michael has lived on in my life and all those I have told about why I kept this bracelet. May God bless you, your family and all those members of the armed services who never came home.?

Reach Jack Dorsey at 446-2284 or at Jack.Dorsey@pilotonline.com

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories...2110&ran=91254


Sempers,

Roger

[Boats]

Roger,

I have mine his name is Maj. Richard G. Elzinga - USAF shot down in Laos 26 Mar 1970. Still missing. I hope some day to return my bracelet to the family when his remains are found. If not one of my kids or grandkids will where it for me when I'm gone.

It is a reminder every day as so pointed out in your thread. I find may other's who still wear their bracelets as well. Mine is a simple band with an OR on it which I don't know what that means maybe Oregon? I've check periodically the records to see if he's still missing and to date - sadly he still is.

It really keeps you from drifting to far away from the old days and reality checks are constantly kicking in.

Roger you have a great Veterans Day and my best to you and all the other's who've served this country.

[Dragon Lady]

I have heard about these bracelets for years but never knew where to purchase one. Are they still being sold? If so, where could I get one?