‘It’s one thing to have to fight; it’s another thing not to have to fight alone’

In the early 1970s, Mike Rangel purchased a chrome bracelet engraved with the name, rank and date of capture of an American prisoner of war in Vietnam: "Capt. Jerry Singleton, 11-6-65."

A veteran himself, Rangel wore Singleton's name to show support for the missing and captured troops.

But it was only a few weeks ago that the Olympia Fields man tracked down the name he's known for 40 years. Rangel found Singleton's information on the Internet, gave him a call and shipped the bracelet to him.

"I didn't know if I should send it because I didn't want to bring up bad memories," Rangel said. "But he said, 'Every one I get, I cherish.'"

Singleton, who now lives in Burleson, Texas, was shot down on an Air Force rescue mission in North Vietnam. He stayed a POW for more than seven years. Since coming home in February 1973, he said he has received more than 1,000 bracelets with his name on it from strangers around the country.

The POW/MIA bracelets were created in 1970 to garner American support for troops, regardless of sentiments on the war itself. Singleton said the bracelets contributed to his survival as a prisoner and his return to the United States.

Singleton's North Vietnamese captors used "wholesale torture of prisoners," he said, especially to coerce them into making anti-American propaganda. Many of them were isolated. They were given food for a few days whenever the captors thought the war was going to end soon. Besides that, they were fed just enough to be kept alive as political leverage.

But North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh died in 1969, and a year later, Americans began wearing the bracelets and speaking out against the torture. This scared his captors, he said, and the wholesale torture actually began to slow down.

"Whether they were for the war or against the war, it gave Americans occasion to say, 'Hey, stop torturing our prisoners,' " Singleton said.

His return to the U.S. was heavily publicized, and he estimated he received hundreds of bracelets within his first few years home — an experience he called "humbling."

"When I came home, there were a lot of people who knew who I was and I had no idea who they were, and they felt like they had a stake in me and my life because they had written letters, worn bracelets, prayed for me," he said. "And in a very real sense, they did have a stake in my life."

Now he only gets a few a year. The call from Rangel, another stranger, was a surprise but not unexpected, he said.

Singleton received Rangel's bracelet in the mail last weekend, just in time for Memorial Day.

"The people who wear the bracelets — they cannot possibly know the difference it made," he said.

"It's one thing to have to fight; it's another thing not to have to fight alone," he said.

This bracelet was owned by Mike Rangel since the early 1970s until he gave it to the man whose name is printed on the bracelet, Jerry Singleton.| Art Vassy~Sun-Times MediaArt VassyMike RangelJerrySingleton

Fact Box: Moving WallPeople can pay tribute to Vietnam veterans this Memorial Day weekend by visiting the Vietnam Moving Wall, a scaled-down, portable version of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., from noon today to 7 p.m. Monday at New Lenox Tom E. Hartung American Legion Post 1977, 14414 W. Ford Drive. Free parking will be available at the Metra station on Laraway and Cedar roads with free shuttle bus service to the American Legion post. The New Lenox post is named after the first New Lenox resident to be killed in Vietnam.