I live in the shadow of Kennestone Hospital in historic Marietta, which for decades was a small local medical outpost for the people of Cobb County. Today, Kennestone is the centerpiece of a massive regional healthcare center. If you live on the northwest side of Metro Atlanta, and you’re pregnant, or seriously ill, or in emergency trauma, chances are good that you’re going to Kennestone. 

In recent years, Kennestone has become noteworthy for its heliport, which receives the transport of serious emergency cases by helicopter directly to its emergency center. Helicopters are almost as frequent over my house as are the many freight trains that rumble through Marietta nearly every hour of any given day. 

When the helicopters fly over my house, I often happen to be outside, and when I hear them, I always offer a Hail Mary for the occupant onboard. I like to think that the injured and sick sense that someone below is praying for them. I also hope that the pilots sense I pray for their own intentions. 

The helicopter was a crucial aspect of the American role in the Vietnam War, which for the United States came to an end this month with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. I remember that the day was a Wednesday, and my father kept us home from school so we could watch the television news reports.  

One of my most vivid memories is the chaotic scramble of Vietnamese civilians trying to get out of the city on American helicopters. This image is crystalized forever in Dutch photographer Hubert van Es’s famous shots of people waiting in a hopelessly long line for a departure that seemed impossible. Almost always mistaken as taken at the U.S. Embassy, van Es’s photos depict the Pittman Apartments. Sadly, hundreds of people were stranded there when the last helicopter departed. 

In another sad irony, 45 of the UH-1 “Huey” helicopters that had been so important to American troops were pushed over the sides of aircraft carriers to make more room for Vietnamese refugees. The machines that had symbolized American ingenuity, hope and determination were reduced to rubbish, useless and in the way. 

By the last day of April 1975, the United States had been involved in Vietnam for 30 years. In 1945, American foreign policy supported the French imperialist colonization of what was then called Indochina. From the defeat of the French in 1954 up until the Kennedy administration, the Domino Theory of communism compelled a continued limited American presence. Kennedy used American military advisors in South Vietnam throughout his presidency, and their involvement became more participatory. In 1964 the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Resolution brought Lyndon B. Johnson deep into a conflict that grew into a quagmire. Johnson left both Vietnam and the Presidency behind in 1968, and from 1969 until his resignation, Nixon withdrew American troops even as he heightened an incursion into Cambodia and increased bombing of North Vietnam. The American press heralded 1972 as the end of the American war in Vietnam, but even as combat operations came under the control of South Vietnam, the United States had never fully abandoned its commitment. 

South Vietnamese refugees walk across a U.S. Navy vessel. Operation Frequent Wind, the final operation in Saigon, began April 29, 1975. During a barrage of explosions, the Marines loaded American and Vietnamese civilians, who feared for their lives, onto helicopters that brought them to aircraft carriers.
U.S. Marines in Japan Homepage, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By early April 1975, it was apparent that the South Vietnamese forces could not succeed. On April 3, wishing to restore some sense of decency and dignity to the American cause, President Gerald Ford ordered a substantial rescue mission named Operation Babylift. The aim of the mission was the evacuation of Vietnamese orphans and their passage to a new life in the United States. A coordinated effort between diplomats, the military, Vietnamese orphanages, and international relief agencies including Catholic Relief Services, the operation ultimately airlifted nearly 3,000 babies and young children out of South Vietnam. 

The operation began tragically. One of the first planes crashed, killing 138 of the 300 passengers onboard including 78 children. Yet by the end of the mission, the objective of rescuing thousands of babies had been achieved. 

True to the cruel ironies of the American experience in Vietnam are the mistakes that were made in the operation. Many of the children evacuated were in fact neither homeless nor orphans but simply assumed to be. Years later, there would be both lawsuits and reunions involving these children and their families. 

Filmmaker Tammy Nguyen’s documentary, “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam,” presents the story of the operation as well as both its positive outcomes and its unintended consequences. One of the American volunteers who worked with infant orphans describes Operation Babylift as “an intensification of what went on in Vietnam every day” in efforts to rescue and care for Vietnamese children whose lives had been shattered by years of combat.  

Operation Frequent Wind followed Babylift on April 29 and 30 and succeeded in rescuing nearly 7,000 Vietnamese and Americans.  

Also in 1975, Operation New Life evacuated more than 130,000 Vietnamese, most of them to Guam, from which they eventually went to America. 

The desperate and dangerous escapes of the “Boat People” throughout the 70s and 80s, and even into the 90s, resulted in the departure of nearly a million refugees from Southeast Asia. Today, there are about two and a half million people of Vietnamese descent in the United States. 

Conventional wisdom asserts that when American involvement in Vietnam began, most Americans had never heard of the country and could not locate it on a map. Yet when I was a boy in the 1970s, my school was attended by numerous children from Vietnam and Cambodia. I knew children whose families had left Vietnam in Operation Frequent Wind, as well as children who evacuated in Operation New Life. In my experience, they were welcomed and accepted, though I know that they faced many struggles in adapting to life in America.  

Metro Atlanta now has about 21,000 Vietnamese, and many of them comprise a vibrant component of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, including Our Lady of Vietnam parish in Riverdale and Holy Vietnamese Martyrs parish in Norcross. Our own Bishop John Tran lived in Vietnam during the war that sadly took the lives of his mother and brother. Bishop Tran’s family left Vietnam by boat and were rescued in the South China Sea. Brought to America, they went to Louisiana, where many Vietnamese relocated. 

An anniversary prayer  

Of the roughly three million American military personnel who served in Vietnam, nearly 60,000 were killed and 300,000 wounded. The average age of a combat soldier was 22, while the majority of those killed were under age 21. Contrary to public perception, most U.S. troops in Vietnam were enlisted men and not draftees. 

It is estimated that nearly three million Vietnamese military and civilians were killed in the war. 

Long-time readers of my column know that I have written frequently about the Vietnam War. I have recommended and reviewed numerous books and films, and I have written about Catholics who served as soldiers and chaplains. The war was a defining moment of my childhood and adolescence, since so many men integral to my education and growth had served. For decades, I have taught the war in college seminars, and I have brought countless veterans—both American and Vietnamese—to speak to and work with students. 

As much as the Vietnam War exhibited a dark side of America, it also reveals a profound benevolence. Operation Babylift and Operation New Life were noble efforts at the end of a complex and tragic moment in American history. They represent America at its best—decent, selfless and compassionate. Getting Americans and Vietnamese alike out of Vietnam in April 1975 took a coordinated effort between military, diplomatic and civilian resources. These efforts not only saved lives; they gave life. The images in Nguyen’s film of literally hundreds of babies filling the floors of orphanages would be heartbreaking if we did not know how many good stories came from their rescue. 

Fifty years after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnam War remains complicated and enigmatic. It defies an easy summation; it even resists the commemoration we typically associate with anniversaries. 

Rather than platitudes, perhaps the best approach is prayer, like the Hail Mary recitations I make for the Kennestone helicopters. The National Association of Vietnam Veteran Ministers, an ecumenical branch of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) has compiled a list of prayers for use in ministry and ritual. Developed by both Catholic and Protestant priests and ministers, along with laity, the prayers are offered for many different intentions: the Vietnamese people, atonement for the death and destruction in Vietnam, serenity and healing from trauma and forgiveness. One of my favorites is a response prayer, typical of many familiar Catholic prayers, such as the Angelus. 

In gratitude for all members of our Archdiocese, whether American or Vietnamese by birth, who served in or were affected by the Vietnam War, I offer this prayer, the full text of which can be found online: “May we see the day when war and bloodshed cease, when a great peace will embrace the whole world. Then nation will not threaten nation, and mankind will never again know war. For all who live on earth shall realize we have not come into being to hate and destroy; we have come into being to praise, to labor, to love. Compassionate God, bless the leaders of all nations with the power of compassion … and let peace fill the earth as the waters fill the sea.”