What is a Prisoner of War (POW,EPW)?

 A prisoner of war (POW) or enemy prisoner of war (EPW) is a combatant who is captured and held by a hostile force during and sometimes after a time of war.

I firmly believe that there are men and women who have been and are being held as prisoners from some war that has long been over. POW's are a good source of labor for the countries that use them that way, however this is not always the way it goes.

POW's are a burden to the force that has them because they have to be fed, cared for, and housed. This will cut into the precious resources that you need to have in order to fight the war.They also take your people out of the war effort because you need to commit personnel to watch and care for them. You may have to use your own medical resources to treat them. This is the primary reason that you see the stories on TV about the harsh treatment that they receive in camps. 

They can't be allowed to just return to their units because they will be able to fight you again and to carry intelligence back to their units. Some Armies will just kill them so that they don't have to worry about taking care of them.

There have been cases of brutal methods being employed to exterminate them because the cost of using ammunition was just too expensive.

Our Operation Desert Storm military ring customers, and our Iraqi Freedom military ring customers know how we were overwhelmed with EPW's during those wars. It got so bad during Desert Storm that we just began to disarm them and let them go. You could see on their faces that they really expected to be tortured. They were surprised to be treated humanely.