National League of Families

The National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia is an American 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is concerned with the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. According to the group's web site, its sole purpose is "to obtain the release of all prisoners, the fullest possible accounting for the missing and repatriation of all recoverable remains of those who died serving our nation during the Vietnam War in Southeast Asia." The League's most prominent symbol is its famous POW/MIA flag.

The League's origins date to groups created by and a group of POW/MIA wives in Coronado, California, as well as POW/MIA wives in the Hampton, Virginia, area led by Evelyn Grubb and Mary Crowe, in 1967. Sybil Stockdale's husband, Navy Commander , was shot down in 1965 and she was determined to make the American people aware of the mistreatment of U.S. POWs. Grubb and Crowe were frustrated with the lack of information from federal officials. It was these groups that finally convinced the U.S. government to change their official stance on the POW/MIA issue in 1969. Eventually, the League was incorporated in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 1970.

Another notable member of the league during the war was Joe McCain, brother of imprisoned U.S. Navy pilot and future U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John McCain.

The league gained increased international attention in 1972 when Life Magazine ran a feature article on the organization. The article started with a full page photograph of Major Wilmer Newlin Grubb of the United States Air Force, the husband of National League of Families President Evelyn Grubb, from after he had been shot down in 1966 and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese Army. Evelyn Grubb by then was also serving as the League's representative to the White House, the United Nations and the Paris Peace Talks, pressing for better accountability, treatment and the speedy return of American MIA and POW soldiers, pilots, airmen, and sailors in the Vietnam War, as well as better policies related to their families. Grubb did not find out until after the war was over that her husband had died shortly after being shot down.

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