Operation Babylift was the mass evacuation of Vietnamese children during the final days of the Vietnam War. On April 4, 1975, the first flight—a C-5A Galaxy carrying 314 passengers crashed shortly after takeoff when mis-rigged rear ramp locks failed under pressure. One hundred seventy-eight people survived. I was one of them. My records did not.

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I was brought to Saigon from Vĩnh Long in the Mekong Delta as an orphan. I was nine months old when the plane crashed. I grew up on Kauaʻi in a loving, mixed-culture community. My adoption was largely unquestioned; when it came up, it was met with curiosity, not doubt. I had no origin story beyond what little appeared in my adoption file, which included basic facts from the process itself. My parents found me the books as they were published over the years. We recorded the TV specials, like the 20/20 episode, and I watched them again and again. This was my history. This was all I had.

Over time, the public story of Operation Babylift broadened. Documentaries gave way to memoirs, academic writing, websites, and eventually social media. Books like Orphans of War told the story of my orphanage and Friends For All Children. The narrative diversified, but it was never mine. My story was told about me, not by me.

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In 2024, I attended an adoptee gathering in Boulder, Colorado. It was the first time I had met other Babylift adoptees beyond the six I traveled with to Vietnam in 2005. I brought a small project, Secret Ability to Fly, inviting adoptees to write notes of gratitude to the caregivers who had protected us. What resonated instead was the archive I had quietly accumulated my entire life: books, news clippings, artifacts. Operation Babylift had always been something I used for school reports and essays—an easy story to tell that usually earned me a decent grade.

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At that gathering, Sister Mary Nelle Gage handed me a box. Inside was a piece of the plane—the C-5A cargo aircraft that had crashed. It had been recovered in Vietnam and passed through the hands of the women who helped save us. Then she said, “What I really need help with are all these files from Friends For All Children.” The organization’s records, once housed in Boulder and supplemented by materials from another volunteer, Sister Susan Carol McDonald, needed a succession plan and a destination. I could do that.

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There are things that change your life in unexpected ways. I have met people who have given me insight into who I am by providing pieces of the puzzle I did not even know were missing. I was shown my name on the passenger manifest of crash survivors. For the first time, there was evidence that placed me in that moment. Sister Mary Nelle introduced me to my own file. It was nothing I didn’t know, but a history and process I had never witnessed: my mother’s handwritten letter requesting consideration as an adoptive parent, home studies, and meticulously detailed notes from the Boulder offices. Seeing these files, the pages of handwritten lists, typed lists, and annotated lists, you begin to understand the enormity of the evacuation, the number of children adopted, and the depth of love and care given to us.

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Today, more than fifty years later, the Friends For All Children records are being processed for archival preservation and access. They include flight manifests, nursery files, operational documents, letters, and photographs, bits and pieces of adoptees’ unknown origin stories. Alongside them are objects that continue to find their way to me: a San Diego Union front page from April 5, 1975; the piece of the plane; a Reader’s Digest story about an adoptee and a flight attendant I would later meet. Together, they say: “Tell my story! Tell my story!” So I am.

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I am an event director by trade. I plan, organize, and build experiences. Since receiving access to more than thirty-three boxes of records, I have been learning archival practice, producing exhibitions nationwide, and preparing these materials for eventual transfer to a permanent repository. Along the way, something became clear: while adoptees have individual pasts, we share a collective history.

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In the past year, I have attended conferences and met people who have changed my life. I have had moments when I am floored by the power of the documents. I am learning to receive the materials I find and research with respect, acknowledgment, and an open mind; to prepare them through deliberate curation that provides cultural and historical context; and, most importantly, to share them with care and presence—giving others agency over their own past while empowering them with the knowledge and resources to continue their exploration.

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This project exists for one purpose: to return these histories to the people they belong to, with care, respect, and compassion. We are reuniting adoptees with their original records, gathering the stories of those connected to Operation Babylift, and preserving the voices of caregivers, volunteers, and veterans before they are lost. We have an opportunity to heal hearts as we protect this collection that is our history. 

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As America approaches its 250th anniversary, this work matters. It restores a chapter of history that has long been fragmented, misunderstood, or missing.

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By bringing these archives back into community hands, we are rebuilding connections: one story at a time, beginning with mine.