Custom Coin of the Month September 2019
Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Coin
Custom Challenge Coins for Defense Agencies
Honoring our fallen heroes can be a full-time job. With the United States’ extensive history of diverse military engagements all over the planet, it’s no surprise that it can sometimes be difficult to discover the exact fate of every soldier on the battlefield. Sadly, many soldiers go missing or are captured over the course of any military campaign. We understand the sacrifice is necessary, but it does not mean the sacrifice goes unnoticed. In fact, for some people, this is a life’s work.
For too long, responsibility for identifying and recovering all our nation’s POWs and MIAs were left up to a hodgepodge of organizations, each with its own mission specializations and particular points of interest. In their own right, every one of them excelled at their given assignments; their true power, however, was yet to be unlocked.
Progress was made toward syncretism when the operations of Central Identification Laboratories in Thailand and Hawaii were combined with the efforts of the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting in 2002, to become the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in 2003. These were further merged with the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office to become the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on January 30th, 2015 under then-President Barack H. Obama and Secretary of Defense John M. McHugh.
The creation of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency brought together the leading battlefield forensics experts, historians, and clinical technicians on earth to tackle the problem of accounting for every man and woman who has ever served our country. Those who work within the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency operate with a stony resolve against all odds to reconstruct the stories of those who might otherwise be forgotten.
Custom Challenge Coins That Celebrate The Unsung Heroes
Custom challenge coins are a way we can celebrate those who don’t often look for the limelight. The steadfast agents of DPMAA often chase down stories that are decades (or even centuries!) old, spending time deep in the archives trying to find the barest trace of a missing soldier. Often, they go looking, taking months following this or that lead, only to find a critical piece of the puzzle missing or discover that the path they took doubles back on itself again. To call the work “thankless” can be an understatement at times; at other times, the sheer relief on the faces of family members upon discovering their family is coming home makes it all more than worth the work.
This month’s featured coin was designed to celebrate the dauntless detectives of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Its design is instantly recognizable for its elegance and substance: this is no vanity coin. A brightly-polished outer rim holds a remarkable secret: The center of the coin is designed to spin! In this case, the spinning center section is meant to symbolize the unification of the efforts of every branch of the military in the mission of honoring every missing soldier and prisoner of war. The eye-catching spinning action is made even more eye-catching by the full-color enamel illustrations on each side. In combination with the obverse rim section reading “Fulfilling our Nation’s Promise” and “Never Forgotten,” the center section containing a shielded eagle grasping arrows and an olive branches, flanked by wrapped sheaves, a silhouetted soldier underneath, forms the great seal of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The reverse section, taken with rim and center together, has the rim with the Agency’s name, with an American flag field and six incredible seals rendered in stunning detail. Take a magnifying glass with you if you really want to discover the true depth of craftsmanship involved in the production of this custom “spinner” challenge coin.
Designing Your Custom Challenge Coin
This month’s custom challenge coin was created out of a desire to honor those whose entire mission is honoring others. Do you have an unsung hero in your life? Do you want to tell a unique story, forever molded in durable metal, with meaningful details that make your coin more than just a momento? The recipients of this month’s featured coin no doubt appreciated the way that the spinning action expressed the history of their Agency in three dimensions, and that’s just the beginning of what we can do. Unit Coins is a veteran-owned business with more than ten years in the custom challenge coin industry. As a leading challenge coin company, there are few things we haven’t done and almost nothing we can’t do. We will work with you to bring your custom award from a dream to reality, making sure to cover all the bases beforehand to guarantee a product that everyone can be proud of.
Custom Coins Built To Last
When you are devoted to keeping the memory of the missing and fallen alive, you deserve something that will carry your memory for a lifetime. Though the DPMAA has a unique mission, it is not unique in its nature: it is among so many agencies within the greater purview of the United States Department of Defense, to take up tasks others don’t have time for or might have put off for another day. Though often those on the front lines of armed conflict seem to attract the most praise, an entire infrastructure operates behind the scenes, seeing to everything from what they eat, to what they wear, to how they travel and even to their final fates. Let us not forget all the hands that come together to make freedom possible. Remember them with a challenge coin.
Our expert coin consultants are waiting to help you with every aspect of the design process, from concept all the way up to final production. You can trust that their years of experience and proven quality means that your project is in the right hands. Email or Call us here at Unit Coins for a free, no-obligation custom challenge coin design consultation today.