MIA

Dave Tarrant at the Dallas Morning News with a story: In Sallie's dream, Chuck stands behind a chain-link fence. He tells her that he will be gone a long time, but ultimately they will reunite. When the night is darkest and fear creeps into her soul, she revisits the dream and holds it close.

This is one of those times.

It is early, before sunrise. Or as her husband, the Air Force navigator, might have said, "Zero dark hundred."

Today – Jan. 27, 1973 – the governments of the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam are scheduled to sign a cease-fire agreement requiring the return of prisoners of war.

Two years earlier, Chuck's jet had crashed during a nighttime bombing mission in Laos. In the blurry days that followed, Chuck appeared in a dream of intense clarity, telling Sallie that he was all right.

The Air Force lists her husband as missing in action, a status represented by the copper bracelet that she never takes off, even when showering or sleeping. Thousands of people across the country have begun wearing such bracelets in support of American service members who are prisoners or missing in action during the Vietnam War.

Her bracelet reads: Capt. Charles Stratton, 1-3-71.

(Parts II and III.)