![\"William](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/William-Grahame-Wilkin.jpg?resize=243%2C272\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nLast week, we wrote about William Grahame Wilkin III<\/a> and the strange story that he claimed to create the POW\/MIA flag eleven years after it was actually created. Wilkin had been honored in the Illinois Legislature and on the floor of the US House of Representatives for his bogus accomplishment. Well Denise Crosby and the Chicago Tribune<\/a> picked up the story today.<\/p>\n After being presented with irrefutable evidence that Heisley was the creator of the logo, he issued a public mea culpa and says he will be returning the plaques from both the Illinois House of Representatives and Congress.<\/p>\n “With deep sadness in my heart, I apologize for not realizing this image already existed,” he said in a written statement released Thursday afternoon. “I would never disrespect or misrepresent our military. Nor would I intentionally steal from another artist. I now believe my work was unknowingly inspired by the original POW\/MIA flag designed by Newton Heisley in 1971….”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He needed evidence, I guess.<\/p>\n In a candid and at times tearful interview the day before, Wilkin insisted there was nothing deceptive about his actions. Up until this week, Wilkin said he truly believed he had designed the logo and that the recognition he was finally starting to get for it a few years ago was “a burden off my back.”<\/p>\n He says he kept quiet about his part in designing the logo until a staff meeting at Aurora Christian School a few years ago in which he shared a devotional with teachers that included how his POW\/MIA logo was based on the Apostle Paul’s writing while incarcerated. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n He also kept quiet long enough for the real designer, Newt Heisley, to die in 2009 at the age of 88. Heisley was a pilot in World War II, so yeah, Wilkins stole part of Heisley’s legacy for no good reason. <\/p>\n Wilkin, who is no longer part of Aurora’s Veterans Week activities, says he’s still trying to reconcile these facts with the way he recalls things playing out so many years ago.<\/p>\n “I am OK with the truth,” he said. “The whole point is to respect and honor the military … and to say I’m sorry.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What a sweet guy to accept the truth and facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, we wrote about William Grahame Wilkin III and the strange story that he claimed to create the POW\/MIA flag eleven years after it was actually created. Wilkin had been honored in the Illinois Legislature and on the floor of the US House of Representatives for his bogus accomplishment. Well Denise Crosby and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dumbass-bullshit"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/William-Grahame-Wilkin.jpg?fit=243%2C272&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-h93","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}