On POW/MIA day we are pleased to announce that the Project Recover edition of the Mk II Hellion-BAKU has sold out! So, while Mk II has been at it for more than 20 years, we haven’t commemorated any of the milestones that most companies do. As we used to say in finance, “Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.” However, we took a moment to break out a small bottle of champagne the day the last BAKU watch sold to raise a glass in remembrance of those missing-in-action and their families and in appreciation of our customers. The bottle of champagne calls back to the one an Admiral opened at the Hotel del Coronado to kick off that legendary rager that the UDTs threw themselves to celebrate the end of WW2. The watch and challenge coin pictured were the ones I carried with me to Palau this past June. On this trip the Project Recover team took us to the location where they believe Black, MacMahon and Roeder are buried. Even though the watches are sold out we’ll be talking more about this active mission and this trip in future newsletters. In the meantime, thank you for your support. The sale of the watches and t-shirts generated more than $18,000 for Project Recover, the last portion of which we forwarded to Project Recover earlier this week.
In the lead up to my trip out to Palau I was thinking about the stories we could tell to support Project Recover's work and how I ended up on a trip of a lifetime. My thoughts led me to the iconic POW/MIA flag, the Vietnam war veterans and the Special Operations Association (SOA) in particular. In 1979 the SOA was the first veterans organization to officially support "The League of Families". Founded in 1970, “The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in S E Asia” (The League of Families) tireless advocacy for POW/MIAs deserves a lion's share of the credit for this national day of remembrance and the support that Project Recover depends upon to continue its important work. In addition to lobbying our political leaders the League of Families commissioned the flag POW/MIA flag, which they officially adopted in January 1972, that is responsible for captivating a nation's attention and keeping our POW/MIAs at the forefront of our thoughts. So it's thanks to The League of Families, the SOA, and Vietnam war veterans that I found myself standing on a beach on Peleliu with my SOA CISO M38 and the Project Recover Hellion-BAKU.
If you'd like to show your support for Project Recover we still have BAKU t-shirts available. In addition you can make donations directly to Project Recover here. We also have CISO M38s in stock and a portion of each watch sold goes to support the SOA and the veterans of MACV-SOG. You can also forward donations directly to the SOA here.
