Vietnam vets connect through POW bracelet

When his country called, John Blanks answered.

He served two tours of duty in Vietnam, one of the most unpopular wars in U.S. history and the subject of a 10-episode series on PBS by filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.

A lot of his buddies went, too. Some came back with broken bodies and broken spirits. Others never came back.

In 1960, John graduated from Macon’s Lanier High School, which had one of the largest Junior ROTC programs in the country. Two years later, he married Kathryn, his high school sweetheart.

His first tour was as an Army infantry platoon leader with the 101st Airborne in 1966-67. Sixteen months later, he returned as a captain and infantry company commander as part of the 82nd Airborne Division.

He was in the thick of the fighting in Southeast Asia. Men around him, even standing beside him, were killed in a war that claimed more than 58,000 American lives.

Back home, Kathryn watched the evening news, hoping to catch a glimpse of her husband, an assurance he was OK. He wrote her every day. Her “Dear John” letters were not the traditional “Dear John” letters.

He was not there for his daughter Ashlyn’s first birthday. He left for Vietnam when she was 6 weeks old and didn’t see her again until she was 13 months old.

“She would call anything in a picture frame her daddy,” Kathryn said.

John returned home in 1969 with a Purple Heart and a fistful of bronze medals. A year later, he was assigned to Infantry Advance School at Fort Benning. He and Kathryn were at a shopping mall in Columbus when they met Anne Purcell. She was the wife of Col. Ben Purcell, the Army’s highest-ranking prisoner of war in Vietnam. They later wrote a book together called “Love and Duty.”

John and Kathryn purchased two of the nickel-plated POW/MIA bracelets that became popular during the latter years of the war. They both chose the names of captains, since that was John’s rank.

Kathryn began wearing a bracelet engraved with the name of Capt. Edward Leonard, who had been captured on May 31, 1968. John selected one with the name of Capt. Louis Genardo “Jerry” Chirichigno, who had been listed as missing in action on Nov. 2, 1969.

Like millions of others, they made a vow to keep them on their wrists until their soldiers returned home, even if it was in a pine box.

For three years, they carried those names with them every day and everywhere. Each glance at their hands was a prayerful reminder.

“I called them bullet prayers, arrow prayers,” John said. “We were thinking about them.”

They symbolically took off their bracelets on March 27, 1973 — “Operation Homecoming” — when 591 American prisoners of war were released by North Vietnam at the end of the war.

John and Kathryn never knew what became of their soldiers. They often wondered where they might be and what they were doing. John was unaware that Chirichigno, a helicopter pilot, had been re-classified from MIA to presumed KIA (killed in action) after being shot down.

John has had a successful career as a financial planner. Kathryn is a retired elementary school teacher and principal in Bibb County.

The bracelets spent most of the next 44 years moving from drawer to drawer, in and out of their thoughts.

This past summer, John was looking for something and came across them.

“Remember these?” he asked Kathryn.

They began to wonder again.

Kathryn was three years too late. She learned her soldier, Ed Leonard, had become mayor of a small town in the state of Washington. He died on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, 2014, which was somehow fitting since he had been shot down on Memorial Day, May 31, 1968. He had been held in a POW camp for five years, including three and a half years in solitary confinement.

John discovered Chirichigno was alive, well and living in Naples, Florida. He wanted to meet him, shake his hand and give him the POW/MIA bracelet he had worn in his honor.

He wrote Chirichigno and said he would be in Florida in July for a family beach vacation. He asked if he and Kathryn could meet him and his wife for lunch.

“I didn’t want to impose because I didn’t know how he felt about it,” John said.

Three days later, John’s phone rang.

It was the beginning of what has become a beautiful friendship.

Chirichigno was born in Piura, Peru, and celebrated his 80th birthday in June. He moved to the U.S. in 1959, when he was 21 years old, and acquired his citizenship five years later.

He attended the University of Miami on a swimming scholarship for 18 months before leaving for his first tour in Vietnam. He was with the 82nd Airborne from 1960-63.

When he came home, he enrolled at the University of Alabama to major in electrical engineering. He was a member of the swimming and football teams. He was a kicker on the 1964 and ’65 Crimson Tide football teams that won back-to-back national championships. Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was his coach and quarterback Joe Namath was his teammate in 1964.

He told John and Kathryn when times were tough in the POW camp he often thought of Bear Bryant’s inspirational talks.

He returned to active duty in 1966 and was assigned to the 101st Airborne. He went back for his second tour in 1967, then had a third tour in September 1969 as a helicopter pilot. Two months later, he was shot down trying to rescue another pilot. He suffered broken bones in his arms and hand and lost the middle finger on his right hand.

He spent most of his four years as a prisoner in a 6-foot cage. In seven months, his weight dropped from 201 pounds to 124. He spent the last several months at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”

The day he returned to the U.S. was the happiest day of his life. However, it was not without heartbreak and complications. After his status was switched to KIA, his wife presumed he was dead and remarried.

Six years later, he met and married his second wife, Maria. He is retired from the State Department, a position he got after meeting Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during a White House ceremony to honor the returning POWs and MIAs.

John was not the first to give him a POW bracelet that was worn for him. But he is the only one Chirichigno has met in person.

“One of the things that kept him going was knowing somebody was wearing a bracelet and thinking about him,” John said.

In the two months since they met, they have become regular text pals, a modern-day version of pen pals. Two weeks ago, John called and offered for him and his family to stay in their home in Georgia during the evacuation of Hurricane Irma, but they decided to ride out the storm in Naples.

Although it may have taken a long time to finally meet, John said, “it’s more special now.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Vietnam vets connect through POW bracelet."