CDR Michael George Hoff, United States Navy, was born 11 September 1936 in Baker, Oregon. He and his wife, Mary Helen, later lived in Florida and were the parents of four sons and a daughter, Suzanne Hoff Ogawa.

On January 7, 1970, Lieutenant Commander Michael George Hoff, as a member of Attack Squadron 86, piloted a single-seat A-7A Corsair II (bureau number 153231) on a ground attack mission in the vicinity of (GC) XD 154 631. While strafing enemy ground targets in the mission area, LCDR Hoff transmitted that his aircraft was hit and he would bail out. His Corsair then crashed and burned nearby. Other pilots on the mission reported seeing evidence that LCDR Hoff had possibly ejected from his aircraft before the crash, although no parachute was seen. A low-level search of the area found small pieces of wreckage, but no sign of LCDR Hoff and the enemy presence in the area prevented ground inspections of the crash site. LCDR Hoff remains unaccounted-for.

While carried in the status of MIA, the Navy promoted LCDR Hoff to the rank of Commander (CDR). Today, Commander Hoff is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. (Source–DPAA Member Profiles)

After her husband was declared missing in action, Mary Helen Hoff began her crusade to get Washington to acknowledge missing and imprisoned military members in Southeast Asia from her dining room table. She involved many correspondents as part of the effort, along with hundreds of silver and copper bracelets with names of POW/MIA service members, which were sent to the families of those individuals. The bracelets were a strong visual example of how many individuals and their families were deeply affected by the war in Vietnam.

Prior to a visit to Laos in October 1973 with a contingent from the League of Families, she contacted New York Flag manufacturer, Annin and Co., and persuaded an executive there to help with designing a flag. “I don’t want a lot of colors,” Hoff said, according to historical archives in Clay County , Florida. “I had seen a picture of one of those POWs wearing black-and-white pajamas and because of that, I said, ‘We need a stark, black-and-white flag.” This was the beginning of the POW/MIA flag we see today. Suzanne Hoff Ogawa currently resides in Bowling Green, Kentucky with her husband and two children. She is the Vice President of Finance for Fruit of the Loom, serves on the Board of the Gasper River Catholic Retreat Center, and is an active member of the League of Families. In honor of her parents, Suzanne speaks on behalf of MIA service member families, and their important role as living advocates of our nation’s responsibility to account for those still missing in action.