I never met him, but David Leet meant a lot to me over the years.

Captain David L. Leet. From Kenosha, Wisconsin. A Marine.

He served in Vietnam.

The fall of 1973, I was a sophomore at Andrew Warde High School in Fairfield, Connecticut. Typical teen, life was: 1) All about me, and 2) Totally miserable. Dad had been offered a new position with General Electric and our family was preparing to move to Indiana.

It was September and America’s involvement in the Vietnam War was finally over. Earlier in the year, North Vietnam released 591 American prisoners of war.

But not everyone made it home.

A couple of college coeds wanted to do something about that. They started an organization called VIVA (Voices in Vital America) and created the POW/MIA Bracelet program. When you bought one, it included a missing soldier’s name, rank, and the date gone missing. When you put it on your wrist, it was your promise to wear it until “your” Prisoner of War or Missing In Action soldier returned to the US.

Here’s mine:

The bracelet came with an info sheet. It included a brief biography and photo. I cut out the picture and added it to photo portion of my wallet.

I still have it:

Wearing that bracelet gave me a connection with someone I knew I’d never meet. But I also knew that David needed me. I prayed for him. I prayed for his son, his wife, his parents.

Nowadays, so much information is available online. Here’s a clip I just found from the archives of the Kenosha News:

As soldiers returned home from Vietnam the summer and fall of 1973, their names were listed in our local newspaper. In tiny, tiny print. My other POW/MIA Bracelet-wearing friends and I scoured the lists each day, hoping to see a familiar name. A few of my friends cried out joyfully when they saw “their” soldier listed in the “alive” column, and happily removed their bracelets.

We moved to Indiana. I didn’t realize that Captain David L. Leet had already been declared dead. I kept praying.

My vow to not remove the bracelet until David returned was put to the test a few months later. Over the winter months our phys ed activity was volleyball.

“Jewelry off, girls. Everything.”

I explained to the gym teacher that this wasn’t really jewelry, it was a promise. And anyway it wouldn’t scratch or catch on anybody. I just couldn’t take it off. Please make an exception. Please.

No one seemed familiar with POW Bracelets at my new school. I was told to take it off or go to the principal’s office.

After a month of volleyball, the bracelet went back on and stayed on for more than a decade.

Before heading off to college a few years later, my summer job was slinging pancakes at an Indianapolis IHOP.

One hot afternoon, a 30ish man sat alone in one of my two-seater booths. I took his order and returned after a bit with his meal. As I placed his plate in front of him, he suddenly reached up and grabbed my arm. Tightly.

“What’s that?” he asked, nodding toward the bracelet.

More startled than scared, I told him it was a POW/MIA Bracelet.

“I thought so,” he said, his moist eyes locked on mine. “Thank you. Thank you for remembering.”

That was the summer of 1976, the nation’s bicentennial. This was long before the internet, of course, and it didn’t even occur to me that a Veteran’s organization could have helped me find out what happened to Captain David Leet.

After four years of college and a few years of life on my own, Gary and I married. The bracelet wasn’t our chosen “something old,” but it remained on my wrist.

On November 20, 1984, our first child was born. That was the day I took off the bracelet, as the doctor didn’t want any jewelry in the delivery room.

Even though I haven’t worn it since then, that simple bracelet and all it represented has stayed close by me.

Searching online this week, it looks like we can piece together a few bits and pieces. David’s young widow remarried and lived a life of service to the poor; sadly she passed away late last year.

Son Jason grew up, got married, and is also a dad. Sometimes he posts on the memory wall set up by Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website. The comments are heartwarming: praise from one of David’s grade-school teachers, another from a cousin who was grateful David stayed calm when the cousin’s driving skills created the need for extra repairs on a farm combine. Other posts are from fellow Marines, some of whom served with Captain Leet and admired him greatly. And others, like me, who wore a POW/MIA Bracelet bearing David’s name and just checked in to say … we remember.

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