CINCINNATI — It was a night like any other night for Janet Stemmle, who never misses World News Tonight with David Muir. But this time, while watching David’s reporting on the reunion of prisoners of war from the Vietnam War marking the 50th year since the end of the conflict, two words stood out: Thomas Hanton.
“That's my guy,” she said.
To better understand you must go back to 1972 when the Vietnam War was underway and there was a mixture of protests and supporters of those serving in combat. While she admits she did attend one demonstration rally during the war, Stemmle said she also matured and quickly understood the men on the front lines were the same age as she was as a college kid.
On the other side of the country, another group of students who were part of the Los Angeles-based student organization Voices in Vital America created the idea to mark bracelets with those who are prisoners of war or missing in action as a way to keep a candle lit for their return home.
Janet had a friend purchase one of the nickel-plated bracelets for her. The name on her bracelet was Captain Thomas Hanton who had to eject from his plane over North Vietnam on June 27, 1972, and was captured and held as a prisoner of war.
“I started wearing it,” she said.
Over the years she didn’t wear it daily but often for special holidays.
“Like Memorial Day or Fourth of July, Veterans Day, you know, just pulled it out and wore it,” Stemmle said.
Many of those who wore the bracelets would send them to the service member when they came home as a gesture to say they were not forgotten.
Hanton spent nine months as a prisoner of war. At the end of the war, he and the remaining POWs came home with much fanfare from President Richard Nixon. During the story on World News Tonight, the celebration of their homecoming was revisited along with a reunion.
For the first time, Stemmle realized her Thomas Hanton was alive and she wanted to find him.
“Well, here’s what I said, maybe Craig can get in touch with David Muir,” she said. “I said you would know about it through your Homefront items.”
She wrote WCPO a letter requesting help in tracking him down and he did in South Carolina.
“It's just it's grateful and humbling. I appreciate her patriotism, number one, for the interest in a small segment, if you will, of the military serving in Vietnam that she, she took made the effort to first of all, acquire the bracelet,” Thomas Hanton said. “Then having it so long and wearing it so faithfully. And then of course, just for the follow-up to send it back to me, it's gonna have special meaning.”
For Stemmle, it’s been a journey she’s happy to see come to a positive ending.
“After seeing that you want to keep some hope these guys,” she said.
She has another bracelet for Air Force Lt. Colonel William Duggan. To date, he is considered to be missing in action.
You can read more about the history of the bracelets on the POW/MIA Families website. You can search for the names of missing service members on the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency website.
