On September 21, 2012, the stark black and white banner symbolizing America’s Missing in Action and Prisoners of War will be flown over the White House; the United States Capitol; the Departments of State, Defense, and Veterans Affairs; the Selective Service System Headquarters; the World War II Memorial; the Korean War Veterans Memorial; the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; United States post offices; national cemeteries; and other locations across our country. We raise this flag as a solemn reminder of our obligation to always remember the sacrifices made to defend our Nation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 21, 2012, as National POW/MIA Recognition Day. I urge all Americans to observe this day of honor and remembrance with appropriate ceremonies and activities.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
Proclamation 8868 of September 21, 2012
Establishment of the Chimney Rock National Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The Chimney Rock site in southwestern Colorado incorporates spiritual, historic, and scientific resources of great value and significance. A thousand years ago, the vast Chaco civilization was drawn to the site’s soaring massive rock pinnacles, Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, that rise hundreds of feet from the valley floor to an elevation of 7,600 feet. High atop ancient sandstone formations, Ancestral Pueblo People built exquisite stone buildings, including the highest ceremonial "great house" in the South-west.
This landscape, encompassing both Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, and known today as Chimney Rock, holds deep spiritual significance for modern Pueblo and tribal communities and was one of the largest communities of the Pueblo II era (900–1150 A.D.). The Chimney Rock site also includes nationally significant archaeology, archaeoastronomy, visual and landscape characteristics, and geological and biological features, as well as objects of deep cultural and educational value.
In 1100 A.D., the area’s cultivated fields and settlements extended from the valley floors to the mesa tops. The pinnacles, Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, dominated the landscape. Today, peregrine falcons nest on the pinnacles and soar over ancient structures, the dramatic landscape, and the forested slopes of the Piedra River and Stolsteimer Creek drainages, which are all framed by the high peaks of the San Juan Mountains.
Migratory mule deer and elk herds pass through the area each fall and spring as they have for thousands of years, and live there during the critical128
