News
from the
AC-119 Gunship Association
May 20, 2009
Page
Updated
January 30, 2010
Newt Heisley dies at 88;
Veteran designed POW/MIA flag
In creating the flag to honor missing military personnel during the
Vietnam War, Newt Heisley recalled his own fears as a pilot during
World War II, and wrote down the phrase “You Are Not Forgotten.”
Heisley, an Army Air Forces pilot during World War II, was a graphic
designer for an ad agency when he sketched the stark black-and-white
design featuring the words 'You Are Not Forgotten.'
By Valerie J. Nelson
May 20, 2009
Newt Heisley, a commercial artist who designed the Vietnam-era POW/MIA
flag that came to symbolize the nation's concern for military personnel
missing or held prisoner in modern conflicts, has died. He was 88.
Heisley, who was a World War II pilot, died Thursday at his home in
Colorado Springs, Colo., after years of failing health, said Jim Heisley,
one of his two sons.
In 1971, Heisley was a graphic designer for a New Jersey advertising
agency when he sketched the stark black-and-white images at the center
of the flag -- the silhouette of a man with head bowed, a guard tower
and a strand of barbed wire -- and the words "You Are Not Forgotten."
His client was Annin & Co., a major flag manufacturer that had
been commissioned by the wife of a soldier missing in action. She had
recognized the need for a symbol to represent the National League of
Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia.
"It was intended for a small group. . . . No one realized it was
going to get national attention," Heisley said in 1997 in the
Colorado Springs Gazette.
The flag emblazoned with POW/MIA first flew over the White House in
1988. It was installed in 1989 in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and is on
permanent display.
In 1990, Congress adopted the flag as "the symbol of our nation's
concern" for those missing and unaccounted for during U.S. military
action in Southeast Asia.
Congress later mandated that the flag be flown at federal buildings
and military installations six days a year, including Memorial Day
and the Fourth of July.
The flag's popularity has expanded more quickly than any other during
the last 50 years, said Edward Mooney Jr., a flag expert and author
in Palmdale.
To veterans organizations, the design has come to represent all U.S.
troops missing in military conflicts dating to World War II.
The words that Heisley stretched across the bottom of the flag -- "You
Are Not Forgotten" -- were inspired by his acute memories of piloting
transport planes on long flights across the South Pacific during World
War II.
While flying, he thought about "being taken prisoner and being
. . . forgotten," he said in the 2002 book "Faith Under Fire." As
he worked on flag sketches, "that experience came back to me,
and I wrote down the phrase 'You are not forgotten.' "
The model for the captured soldier was his son Jeffrey, then 24, who
had just returned from Marine training gaunt and sick with hepatitis.
While Heisley was "extremely, extremely proud" of designing
the flag, he was embarrassed by the attention that came with it, said
his son Jim.
"I didn't do it for personal gain or acclaim," Heisley told
the Denver Post in 2002. "I did it for the men who were prisoners
of war or missing in action. They're the real heroes."
Newton Foust Heisley was born Nov. 9, 1920, in Williamsport, Pa. His
mother died when he was 4 months old, and he spent much of his childhood
with grandparents.
At Syracuse University, he earned a degree in fine arts and met his
future wife.
After graduating in the early 1940s, he was a graphic artist for the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and then enlisted in the Army Air Forces.
After the war, he spent 25 years at advertising agencies in New York
City and New Jersey. Tiring of the big-city commute, he drove west
with his wife, Bunny, looking for "greener pastures," said
his son Jim.
"They pulled into Colorado Springs in the middle of the night.
The next morning, he saw the view and said, 'Bunny, we're not going
any further. This is it,' " his son recalled.
After moving to the town in 1972, Heisley opened an advertising agency
with Jim. One of their projects was designing a pin for the 1980 Lake
Placid Winter Olympics.
When Heisley retired in 1987, he rediscovered fine art, painting a
Pawnee Indian chief and a scene from "Madame Butterfly," a
favorite opera of his wife. Bunny died in 2005 at 84.
On smaller canvases -- his lapel, hat and license-plate frame -- Heisley
showcased the POW/MIA image whose popularity, he once said, had gone
beyond his "wildest dream."
In addition to his sons, Heisley is survived by his fiancee, Donna
Allison, whom he had planned to marry Friday; a sister, Patricia Freshney;
and a granddaughter.
valerie.nelson@latimes.com
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