PRESIDENTIAL AIDE: [00:00:01] Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

CROAN: [00:00:06] April 3rd, 1975. Two years after the last U.S. combat troops departed Vietnam.

FORD: [00:00:13] Will you please sit down. [00:00:15]

CROAN: [00:00:15] With Danang having fallen to Communist forces a month earlier and Saigon under heavy attack. The situation in South Vietnam is deteriorating quickly. President Gerald Ford is giving a press conference in San Diego.

FORD: [00:00:29] Good morning. [00:00:30] I have a short opening statement. We are seeing a great human tragedy as untold numbers of Vietnamese flee the North Vietnamese onslaught. The [00:00:45] United States has been doing, and will continue to do its utmost to assist these people. I have directed that all available naval ships to stand off Indochina, to do whatever [00:01:00] is necessary to assist.

CROAN: [00:01:03] As communist forces advanced on Saigon, desperate South Vietnamese parents began surrendering their children to Western run orphanages in hopes that they might be evacuated before any Khmer Rouge-style purge [00:01:15] could claim them.

FORD: [00:01:17] I have directed that money from a $2 million special foreign aid children’s fund be made available to fly 2000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States as soon [00:01:30] as possible. I have directed that C-5A aircraft and other aircraft especially equipped to care for these orphans during the flight be sent to Saigon. I expect [00:01:45] these flights to begin within the next 36 to 48 hours.

CROAN: [00:01:49] Over the next 24 days, in a mass evacuation known as Operation Babylift, around 3,000 infants and children were airlifted from orphanages in South Vietnam to the United States [00:02:00] and other Western countries, including Australia, France, West Germany and Canada.

FORD: [00:02:05] This is the least we can do, and we will do much, much more.

CROAN: [00:02:11] In this episode, we’ll hear from the pilot of the very first flight [00:02:15] of Operation Babylift.

TRAYNOR: [00:02:18] You know, we ended up with 314 people on board. There’s no expectation that we’re going to crash. And so there’s no expectation that the survivability downstairs was worse than the survivability [00:02:30] upstairs. We… That was lessons learned after the fact.

CROAN: [00:02:34] And from a woman who was among the orphans on the last operation Babylift flight out of Vietnam on April 26th, 1975.

HESLIN: [00:02:42] Fourth of July, growing up, I was always terrified [00:02:45] of the fireworks. Maybe I heard those noises from the war, I don’t know, but then later in life, I started loving fireworks. So the tragic then became beautiful.

CROAN: [00:03:02] Stick [00:03:00] around. From the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. Founders of The Wall, this is Echoes of the Vietnam War. [00:03:15] I’m your host, Michael Croan, bringing you stories of service, sacrifice, and healing from people who still feel the impact of that conflict… More than 50 years later. This [00:03:30] is Episode 49: “Operation [00:03:45] Babylift.”

CROAN: [00:03:48] Dennis Traynor, who goes by “Bud,” started flying cargo planes in and out of Vietnam in 1971. So by April of 1975, he knew his way around pretty well. Bud’s father had [00:04:00] been a barnstormer and had taught him a little bit about flying aircraft, with the bare minimum of controls and instruments. Bud could not have imagined how necessary that training would become on one particularly fateful day…

CROAN: [00:04:14] April 4th, [00:04:15] 1975, how did that day start for you?

TRAYNOR: [00:04:19] We had just flown across the pond from Travis Air Force Base through Hawaii and Guam, and we’re now in the Philippines, and normally we would get the [00:04:30] cargo off the airplane. The cargo would fly empty, probably to Kadena, you know, Japan and then fly home. But in this case, they alerted us and said, you know, we want you to take the howitzers and they’re very important. And this is [00:04:45] while we’re sitting at Clark Air Base. Clark is about three hours from Vietnam. So we said sure. Uh, they alerted us at our normal time. It’s a middle of night for us. They used to call it Midnight Air Command for a reason. Because it seemed like [00:05:00] you were always flying at night. And, uh, one of the guys came to me and said, “22nd Air Force Command Post wants to talk to you.” And I said, “Why?”

TRAYNOR: [00:05:11] And I said, well, I’ll come back and talk to him. So they [00:05:15] called me back to the command post. And that’s when I learned that, uh, President Ford had announced that he’s going to carry orphans out of, uh, Vietnam and use the C-5. So what we want to know is, how many people can you carry out? Well, [00:05:30] we’ve got 73 seats upstairs. That’s how many people we can carry. No no, no. “How many can you really take,” they said… And I was talking to lieutenant colonel and a major, and I said, [00:05:45] “You mean floor load them?” And the major said, “You’re pretty sharp for a captain. Yes. Floor load them.”

TRAYNOR: [00:05:51] So… I don’t know! So I grabbed my load master, and we went out to the airplane, and we heel-toed and counted tiedown rings [00:06:00] and that sort of thing, and we looked at each other and said, you know, if we stood everybody up, we could probably put 2,000 people in here. And then we said, no, we’re not going to say that. So we said, well, we’ll say 1,000 with confidence. So we went back in and [00:06:15] told them a thousand… And they said, “Great! And, they’re children.” That was the next shoe to drop. And oh, so then they asked me, “So what do, what do you need to carry children.” Well, [00:06:30] now, back in the ’70s, I had a two-year-old kid and a and a two-week-old child. He’d just been born, so I knew what they needed. They needed milk and juice and blankets and diapers. They didn’t have Pampers back then. And [00:06:45] they said, “Great, we’ll make it happen.” And the next thing I know, they’re calling me back. And they said, well, “Would you like an air evac crew to do this mission?” Uh, sure. Good idea. Never [00:07:00] flown air evac before. So they did. They alerted the the air evac crew. And so we went out to the airplane, and we’re, uh. And I got to tell you, this is this whole story is a story of training and teamwork. Uh, everybody knows [00:07:15] what they’re supposed to do, and it doesn’t take a lot of guidance.

CROAN: [00:07:18] How long between the time that you found out you were going to Vietnam and wheels up?

TRAYNOR: [00:07:25] After we, uh, went out to the airplane to pre-flight, uh, they told [00:07:30] us that they weren’t ready in Saigon for us to come on back in. And so we buttoned up the airplane, and we’re all walking back toward the command post again, and they came running out and said, no, no, no, take off, take off. So he turned around and went back [00:07:45] out.

CROAN: [00:07:46] Anything interesting happened on the flight from Clark to Saigon?

TRAYNOR: [00:07:51] Everything was just absolutely dead normal, flying over to, uh, Saigon. Again, we didn’t realize [00:08:00] that there were five divisions within 75 miles of Saigon. We just didn’t know… And that Danang had fallen, and Cam Ranh, where I was stationed previously, had fallen. Um, it [00:08:15] was pretty dire straits, but we didn’t really realize the severity. We didn’t realize that the Vietnamese army had broken ranks, and they’re all running for home. Uh, to get mama and the kids and try to get away from what was seen as a [00:08:30] terrible situation. Um, they just all knew they’re going to be imprisoned or killed or worse… And, and so they’re trying to get out and their trucks and, and cars that were just stuffed like clown cars trying to get people from, uh, to [00:08:45] the coast so they could get on a boat and get away from Vietnam. So it was very dire. But…

CROAN: [00:08:49] And you’re flying right into that, you’re flying right into that mess…

TRAYNOR: [00:08:53] …Right into it.

CROAN: [00:08:58] And when did it dawn on you [00:09:00] that you were landing in a very different situation in Saigon?

TRAYNOR: [00:09:05] Uh, never. We had a job to do. We went in, we landed on the… We taxied over to the parallel taxiway between the ramp and the runway. [00:09:15] Uh, left one engine running and offloaded our howitzers. They were very grateful. Uh, as far as anything looking abnormal, there was nothing abnormal. There… No, [00:09:30] nobody was shelling the base yet or anything like that. So there isn’t, wasn’t anything to see.

CROAN: [00:09:36] The fact that you knew you were there to carry a thousand people out of there that didn’t that didn’t trigger any, uh, Spidey. Spidey sense?

TRAYNOR: [00:09:44] Well, [00:09:45] yes. I mean, to to a degree, it was a surprise to me in the Philippines when they said I’d be taking them out, but, uh… I didn’t know, for example, that the day before World Airways – under [00:10:00] the cover of darkness and the lights all turned out and forbidden by the ambassador to take off – World Airways took out some 57 orphans the night before, but I didn’t know that. Like I said, I’m sure that I was [00:10:15] told, I’m certainly not saying that, that people weren’t being upfront with me… It was, I go back to the invincible and oblivious of what we generally were.

TRAYNOR: [00:10:27] So we offloaded the the howitzers and [00:10:30] the the orphanages didn’t quite have everything put together yet, so we had to wait for them to show up. And then they showed up in, uh, school buses that had windows with the [00:10:45] bars on them almost look like prison buses. But it was, uh, for, for safety reasons, they came out and, uh, we formed a human chain. We put a, put Pan Am stairs up against the back of the airplane, and [00:11:00] we just bucket brigade carried kids up the stairs all the way up into the cargo compartment, and then up the stairs from the cargo compartment, up to the troop compartment where we’ve got those 73 aft facing seats. [00:11:15]

CROAN: [00:11:16] And what are the what’s the range of ages of these kids?

TRAYNOR: [00:11:20] Mostly very young. Uh, like two, I think. Two or three, it was probably the, the average age. And [00:11:30] so those kids, if we would take little kids and we’d put them two-to-a-seat and put a juice or a milk or something and a blanket and pillow and a seat belt, put that right over the [00:11:45] two kids and go to the next seat. And so for each one of those seats, we had a couple of people, a couple of kids in them. And the irony is that if a kid was facile enough to undo the seat belt, then [00:12:00] he would be taken downstairs and swapped out with a person who couldn’t, because we had a lot of people. I think, uh, you know, we ended up with 314 people on board. There’s [00:12:15] no expectation that we’re going to crash. And so there’s no expectation that the survivability downstairs was worse than the survivability upstairs. We, that was lessons learned after the fact. So [00:12:30] it was merely crowd control. We, all of the adults that were supervising the kids in the troop compartment, they sat between the seats, you know, between on the floor, between where an adult’s legs would be. But [00:12:45] the kids were just sitting in the seats.

CROAN: [00:12:48] So you loaded up the the troop compartment. And I guess when that was full, then you started putting putting kids into the cargo.

TRAYNOR: [00:12:56] Well, I think it happened both at the same time because the the most [00:13:00] comfortable place to sit, not on the floor, was on the, uh, there’s a walkway that goes around on either side of the cargo compartments. Normally, if you’ve got it full of pallets, you have to have some place to walk beside the cargo, [00:13:15] but those end up being convenient little places to sit. So the older kids, you know, the ten year olds and 12 year old, that kind of age, we put them there in the first place. And that’s where the adults were. We had a lot of, uh, DIA [00:13:30] people. They also were sitting downstairs. And so most of them, unfortunately, died. In fact, of the 314 people aboard, 176 people survived. And [00:13:45] 153 people died. So that’s a an unfortunate statistic. But the people downstairs did not fare well. In fact, only a couple of people survived downstairs, and almost everybody upstairs survived. [00:14:00]

CROAN: [00:14:01] Uh, how long did all this take to to to get the everybody loaded and everything, you know, all your checks that you have to do. How long before you’re ready to take off again?

TRAYNOR: [00:14:12] We’re probably on the ground for an hour or two, or so. [00:14:15] Okay. Uh. That’s all… We weren’t, it wasn’t long. I mean, the the flight crew, including me. I went in to file, and I came back. And then when I came back, by that time, the howitzers that had been offloaded. [00:14:30] And then the orphans showed up, and we loaded them and we took off. At that point, everything was going great. I complimented the the crew on the inner pony [00:14:45] for doing such a great job, and everybody was happy as a clam. They were just all, all leaving in about 12 minutes after we had taken off. We were just passing Vung Tau, which is a, uh, [00:15:00] an R&R resort on the coast of Vietnam, and the departure point from which we would go back over to the Philippines. The door locks in the rear ramp overloaded, and when they [00:15:15] did, it was kind of like a zipper that you poke a pencil in, and then the rest of the zipper unzips. So there were some locks that failed. The ramp dipped into the slipstream a little bit, and when it did, it ripped the ramp off. [00:15:30] And when the ramp went, it took the pressure door, which is the big back door of the airplane, and there’s 93 tons of pressure on it. So at 23,000ft, the pressure door and the ramp left the airplane, and when it rotated, [00:15:45] it cut two of the four hydraulic lines and all of the flight control cables to the tail. Now, this happened in a split second.

TRAYNOR: [00:15:56] Immediately we got condensation in the cockpit and [00:16:00] I looked over at my co-pilot. We’d had of co-pilot windshield replaced in the Philippines, and I just knew it was sitting in his lap. Now he was putting on his oxygen mask. And I thought, you know, that’s probably a good thing to do. So you reach [00:16:15] over and you get your oxygen mask and and put it on. And immediately the crew very professionally started checking in and I found out what had happened in very short order. I launched my loadmaster to go see what he could see, [00:16:30] and the engineers were looking at the flight control cables, and they’re telling me that I had two of my four hydraulic systems left. There is no reason that I should have any flight control problems. And I rolled off on a wing. This is all [00:16:45] happening simultaneously. There’s a lot of things going on, and I put my nose down, and I don’t have any reason to suspect that I have no flight controls, and [00:17:00] that’s because the artificial feel was generated by the air pressure outside, how fast I was going, and one of the remaining hydraulic systems. So, uh, I, it felt like I should have [00:17:15] the ability to pull back on the yoke or whatever, and I could, but it was the cables weren’t connected to anything, but there were still hydraulic. There’s still hydraulic pressure on the valve so that they didn’t just flutter and [00:17:30] have us gain what they say, all the aerodynamic characteristics of a rock.

TRAYNOR: [00:17:35] You know, we didn’t fall out of the sky. So I rolled off on a wing. I had right aileron. That was my only flight control. I didn’t know it and put my nose down. And [00:17:45] the reason for that is that 23,000ft, the procedure is to get back down to a breathing level, which is, you know, you’re aiming for 10,000ft. Well, I went right through 10,000ft, and I got the yolk [00:18:00] in my lap and were talking to the co-pilot. And, uh, about this time people came forward and said, you know, I see you have everything under control, and I’m going downstairs to help with the passengers. And so we’re we’re doing a lot of things [00:18:15] all all at once. But the nose started to come back up again. So I thought, wow, we got we have some control. I didn’t realize that we’d just gone fast enough that the nose was now coming up straight [00:18:30] up. And so back to training from pilot training and a fighter. Uh, when you to do a vertical recovery, you kick off on a wing, so you lower the nose sideways, and then that brings the airplane [00:18:45] back down again. So now I’m saying, wow, that was scary, that, you know, I was a captain and I was fearless, but that scared me. And, uh, so now I’m screaming down again and [00:19:00] I’m going actually even faster. So I end up going, I think, around 350 knots. And when I saw I was going that fast, that’s when my dad’s training came back.

TRAYNOR: [00:19:12] And if you’re flying an old [00:19:15] Stearman airplane, you don’t have enough power to pull you over the top in a loop. So what you do instead is you you get some airspeed by going straight down with a with the airplane. You get your airspeed and then pull up, and then the engine will pull you [00:19:30] right over the top. But that’s managing an underpowered airplane. And in this case, though, uh, I, I figured that if I didn’t do anything, I would probably just go down and, and, uh, hit the water [00:19:45] or hit Vung Tau or, you know, I just was going to do that. So I added power in the dive. So when I went to Max power in the dive, that got me going faster sooner, and it pulled my nose up sooner. And [00:20:00] now I’m starting to scream back up, just like I did before. But even though I was a captain, I was trainable. So I rolled off on a wing at 10,000ft and I’m now flying in the direction of Saigon, and [00:20:15] I’m at about 10,000ft, and I, I can roll the airplane with the remaining elevator. And so I’m doing power for pitch and that remaining [00:20:30] airline aileron for bank. So I called for gear down before landing check and had the co-pilot emergency extend the gear. So that was that was the beginning of the trip back home. And the [00:20:45] navigator asked me if he wanted me to wanted him to give me headings. And I said, no, listen, you know, this is my stomping grounds from before.

TRAYNOR: [00:20:53] I know where I am. So I just was flying a visual approach back to Saigon. [00:21:00] And by then the Americans had all been all gone from from Saigon. And the Vietnamese controller was saying, you know, maintain this heading, maintain this altitude, go around the other direction. [00:21:15] Because of the the wind was such that you would take off to the east and you would land to the east. But we’re coming back now. And I told him, no, we’re going to land opposite direction traffic. And the guy said, no, no, no, you can’t [00:21:30] do that. And my Jumpseat, who was managing the radios at that moment, said, would you shut up and listen? We’re going to land opposite direction, get everybody off the field. So I don’t know what they ultimately did because we didn’t make it that way [00:21:45] coming down that chute, we emergency extended the gear. We lost only a couple hundred feet doing that and no controllability issues. And so I briefed the co-pilot that we would go full ground [00:22:00] spoilers and full flaps once we touched down, so that we could have a chance of slowing down. And I began to plan a an approach like I would a glider. So once again, [00:22:15] my dad taught me how to fly gliders. And so that that you get a you have to play your altitude with how far out you turn, left or right, coming in in an angle to the final approach. And so [00:22:30] everything was going great, uh, until I got the nose gear down and that extra drag, I couldn’t add enough power to keep the nose up.

TRAYNOR: [00:22:41] And. And if you think about a [00:22:45] wing which is opposing gravity, when you bank, that wing opposes less gravity. And the vector starts to be to make you turn instead. So that’s how in [00:23:00] the initial stages I roll off on a wing, the nose drops, etc. the same thing would happen. And so when I turn my 45 degrees or so started to, the nose dropped more [00:23:15] than I could push the power up to control. So that meant that I had to roll the wings level and the co-pilot said, we take it straight ahead, and I absolutely we are. And I’m thinking, John Wayne, you and me, [00:23:30] John, we’re going to we’re going to pull this off and maybe I’ll go around and land the regular direction traffic. No. So the with the added drag of the gear and the inability to add more power, [00:23:45] I ended up pushing the throttles over the the the top. Now normally you set the throttles based on the gauges. I was just pushing them all the way up, which was literally hoarding raw gas into the engine which was torching [00:24:00] behind us, leading people to believe that we’d been struck by a missile, taken a bad bullet, something, you know, they thought, we’ve been damaged, but we got toward the ground. Uh, and I thought, [00:24:15] well, no sense going in like an arrow. I remember saying that to myself, and I pulled the throttles back to idle and the cushioning of the wings.

TRAYNOR: [00:24:24] The once you get within one wingspan of the ground, you get the the cushioning effect of the air [00:24:30] that’s trying to escape to the top of the wing. And the same thing that causes wingtip turbulence. And so it leveled me out, and we touched down at 5 or 600ft per minute, which is a normal landing. Touchdown. [00:24:45] Everything was going great. Uh, and then all of a sudden, we bounced back in the air. I only learned later that my co-pilot had taken [00:25:00] me at my direction and put the flaps to full, and when he did, we popped back into the air again. And now I see a big river ahead of me, and that Saigon river was looming large. [00:25:15] And so I added a little power and, uh, didn’t really get any power out of it, but, uh, I think we probably drug our tail in the water of the Saigon River and landed on the [00:25:30] other side. Now, unfortunately, there are 4 or 5, uh, Vietnamese soldiers with AR 15 and flip flops, and we landed right on top of them. They were the first casualties. I’m sure they never expected to see a C-5 [00:25:45] coming at them, but 30 or 40ft. So when we touch down this next time. It was very rough. Unbeknownst to me, what happened on the first touchdown? It snatched the gear off and [00:26:00] that took a lot of the energy away. And now the co-pilot had put down the flaps, and that allowed us to slow down really quite a bit.

TRAYNOR: [00:26:09] And then when we hit the second side, it was very rough. [00:26:15] Uh, the tapes all dropped, which meant in retrospect that the, the, the electrical connections had all been broken. And then unbeknownst to me, the airplane broke into component parts. At this point, [00:26:30] I can feel us rolling upside down. I am looking out my window. I can see that there’s dirt and everything coming up. So I said goodbye to my wife twice, and, uh, because I thought I was. That was it. And suddenly I came to a stop. Um, [00:26:45] it was quiet, uh, I was alive. And somebody yelled fire! So I didn’t need any more hints than that. I. I undid my [00:27:00] seatbelt. I was upside down, swung around and opened the side facing window, which had a little crank on it, which upside down, I reached in the wrong place first, of course, rolled down the window, got out my side [00:27:15] window, which is usually 33ft in the air, stepped out, reached back in, got my hat and put it on. I was military, I was outside and I looked down the side of the of the flight deck, [00:27:30] not realizing that it had turned 180 degrees. And I’m now looking at the wings that are all by themselves burning. And I thought, that’s the rest of my airplane. So it was. I walked [00:27:45] another, you know, 25 yards till I got past the end of the broken off flight deck, and I could see that the troop compartment was a hundred yards or so away.

CROAN: [00:27:56] Underneath the troop compartment was the cargo compartment, the [00:28:00] belly on which the plane landed and skidded to a stop. That part of the aircraft and nearly everyone in it disintegrated into the soil.

TRAYNOR: [00:28:11] And so I we dispatched crew [00:28:15] members over to the troop compartment, and they began offloading the kids out of the troop compartment. And I went around to the underside of the flight deck, where I found two survivors of the of the crash. The only adult [00:28:30] survivors that I’m aware of. I think there might have been a kid, but I don’t I don’t know, we didn’t ever get a manifest. They never did create the manifest for us. So we don’t really, really know. So [00:28:45] we’ve been talking on the radio all this time and Air America, uh, they were honest in about four minutes and started carrying out the the survivors, and they’re taking them back to Saigon. We were only maybe as the crow [00:29:00] flies to 2 or 3 miles from the end of the Saigon runway, and they would ferry them away. And, uh, and then they started going for the, the deceased, and they carried them away. And when [00:29:15] they got all the, the people out of there, the only people left were me, uh, and my loadmaster, the same guy I’d paced off the Titan rings with. And so we got on the last [00:29:30] helicopter and flew back to Saigon. We had 11 people. 11 crewmen die in this. So there are 11 people on that wall. [00:29:45] And those 11 people were just doing their job when when things went wrong, we had a med tech climbing the the flight [00:30:00] deck ladder when the rapid decompression the door blew out, as it’s designed to do, so that it doesn’t pop the balloon, so to speak.

TRAYNOR: [00:30:09] And it hit him and it hit him in the face and hurt him. And so another, another nurse [00:30:15] was attending to his injuries. Those are two people downstairs. I had a third pilot who was really on his first operational mission, and I told him that his he would be best served to buy a camera [00:30:30] and all the film he could carry at Clark. And he did that. So he was downstairs filming. And of course, we got nothing out of that, but he was downstairs. There was a lieutenant colonel who was put on the airplane at Clark for adult leadership. He was a lieutenant colonel, and I was a captain. [00:30:45] But he said, you’ve got everything under control. I’m going downstairs to to help with the people downstairs. And so he was downstairs when he died. Uh, we had three loadmasters who died a student engineer, two med techs, [00:31:00] three, three med techs, actually. And the two photographers that were filming during the rapid decompression. I mean, I wish I could have gotten their film. Uh, they died in the crash. So all of these 11 [00:31:15] people, uh, of the crew died.

CROAN: [00:31:26] You mentioned how capable your crew was and all the people who [00:31:30] helped get the airplane loaded, you know, in, in really a short amount of time, more than 300 kids loaded onto the airplane, strapped in, safe and secure and ready to take off. And that’s you talked about teamwork. You talked about training. I don’t want to diminish the tragedy [00:31:45] of 138 souls lost, but I wonder how much worse it could have been if it hadn’t been for all that teamwork and training.

TRAYNOR: [00:31:55] One of the great things about the military and that people don’t understand, really, [00:32:00] sometimes, is that you can. The parts are interchangeable sometimes if you want to think of it in mechanical terms. So did I ever fly with any of these crew members before? Basically, [00:32:15] no. But I knew that they were trained and I knew how they were trained, and I knew the standards to which they were trained. And so I knew what to expect out of every person. And not everybody does everything right the first time. But I got to tell [00:32:30] you, this crew really did everything right the first time. So it was it was an awesome experience from that standpoint. And I have to say too, that the crew, as great as they were, had there not [00:32:45] been a miss rigged lock that blew out the back of the airplane, we would have taken our crew and our cargo and our companions and the orphans and everything else. We would have landed in [00:33:00] the Philippines. You know, it just it would have been another day in Paradise. It just would have been another day.

CROAN: [00:33:09] Colonel Traynor retired from the Air Force in 1995, having earned the Air Force Cross. His [00:33:15] citation acknowledges the extraordinary heroism and superb airmanship that saved the lives of 176 people aboard the first Operation Babylift flight out of Saigon After the break, we’ll hear from Leah Heslin, who was a [00:33:30] toddler on the final flight of Operation Babylift. Stick around…

[00:33:44] On Veterans [00:33:45] Day 1996, VVMF unveiled an exact replica of The Wall that could be packed into an 18 wheeler and hauled to cities and towns all across America. Since then, The Wall That Heals has been displayed in nearly 700 communities [00:34:00] throughout the nation, spreading the healing legacy of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to millions of visitors. If you want to know more about this traveling exhibit and the impact it can have on a community, check out episode 15 of this podcast. The [00:34:15] Wall That Heals and The Mobile Education Center that travels with it will be in Citrus Heights, California, March 30th through April 2nd and Menifee, California, April 6th through 9th. To see the rest of this year’s tour schedule, and to learn how [00:34:30] you can bring the wall that heals to your town, visit vvmf.org.

ANN-MARGRET: [00:34:36] Hi, I’m Ann-Margret. I went to Vietnam to entertain the troops in 1966 and 1968. [00:34:45] My guys, my gentlemen, if you lived through the Vietnam War era, you know the impact that the war had. But today we are in danger of history being lost. Current generations know [00:35:00] very little about the war or the people who served as more of our Vietnam vets pass away each day. Their stories are being lost to history. Together we can change that. The Vietnam Veterans [00:35:15] Memorial Fund is the organization that built The Wall. It works to ensure that future generations will understand the war’s impact. Let’s help keep the promise that The Wall was built on. Never forget. [00:35:30] Visit vvmf.org to find out how you can get involved.

CROAN: [00:35:37] The Registry is an online community created by VVMF that connects veterans of the Vietnam War era with each other. By signing [00:35:45] up for the registry, you can upload and share stories and images. Connect with others who served during the Vietnam era, and connect your service with people you knew whose names are now on The Wall. Join the community and preserve your legacy [00:36:00] or a family member’s by signing up today at vvmf.org/registry.

CROAN: [00:36:19] The [00:36:15] final flight of Operation Babylift left Saigon on April 26th, 1975. Among the orphans on board were two toddlers bound for a Catholic orphanage in New Orleans. [00:36:30] This was big news in New Orleans, where Carol and Thomas Heslin were living with their young daughter, Maria. Here’s Leah Heslin, who was adopted by that family.

HESLIN: [00:36:41] My sister saw me on TV, walking down the hallway, holding [00:36:45] hands with a Catholic nun and me and the other boy. She was probably like six years when she saw me on TV and she was like, oh my gosh, I want to adopt a sister. And so when she told my parents when they came home, [00:37:00] they’re like, hey, turn on the TV. Do you know what about this breaking news about these orphaned Vietnamese babies? And they’re like, yeah, we kind of heard about it, you know? And so she’s like, I want a sister. So [00:37:15] they had thought about it when they heard about the news. My parents. And so they were like, let’s call the number and see what we need to do. They did the interview. They got called back And, you know, my father [00:37:30] was like, I hope I get the daughter. But, you know, my mother was like, well, we get blessed if we get the boy or the girl. And my sister still was like hoping to get me and get a sister. And long story short, they got that phone call. [00:37:45] And at the other end my sister was just praying and hoping it’s me. And they said another family wanted the boy and you guys got the girl. So it was my sisters wish and my parents were so overly joyed. So [00:38:00] so that’s why I’m here today.

CROAN: [00:38:02] Do you have any idea how old you were when they put you on that plane?

HESLIN: [00:38:06] No, because it was what I was told. It was like so fast. And all they were trying to do was just try [00:38:15] to get as many babies in this cargo flight, which was the last cargo flight.

CROAN: [00:38:20] So you were an infant?

HESLIN: [00:38:22] I was like 2 or 3 years old. Okay, okay. Um, and the way this the, the nuns had said, [00:38:30] you know, they’re like, they’re over, about over 100 babies in this flight. And supposedly the story was said that I had like kind of like two papers on me [00:38:45] a little bit, but one said one age and a year, and the other one said like a year different, but around the same birthdays. So as they finally brought me into the US, you know, they [00:39:00] checked my teeth and height and so they went with, um, February 25th, 1973. And then the name that I was born with, the name was a Vietnamese name, and the name was Nguyen Tao Tan. [00:39:15] Um, so when I got adopted, my parents decided to keep my middle name, and then my father and mother named me Leia. They told me where I was from, which was, um, in Gia [00:39:30] Dinh, and it was part of, like, kind of like Saigon area. I don’t know what happened to my, um, my birth mother. They weren’t sure, but they knew kind of the story that supposedly my father, [00:39:45] uh, surrendered me at the orphanage because they thought maybe he was a military and so he wouldn’t be able to take care of me.

CROAN: [00:39:55] How much time passed between her seeing that report and you getting adopted?

HESLIN: [00:39:59] So the [00:40:00] way my mother says she thinks maybe six weeks or so. Wow. In the process. Yeah.

CROAN: [00:40:07] The newscast of you meeting your parents for the first time. You have seen that?

HESLIN: [00:40:14] I [00:40:15] have seen that. And.

CROAN: [00:40:16] Yeah, are you…

HESLIN: [00:40:16] … been A long time. But I do have it right in my memory. And, you know, it’s it’s funny and weird, like I don’t remember, you know, like coming over or anything like that, but, I mean, [00:40:30] sometimes I have visions and, like, just sometimes dreams in and out. And sometimes I think about, like, the day that I was adopted. I kind of remember some of the specifics, but other than that, it’s been… But like growing up, [00:40:45] kind of remember, some situations mean being scared of some situations. Um, like 4th of July growing up was one of my, I guess, my mother said I was always terrified of the fireworks and all that. For a while I was like, [00:41:00] like scared. So, and I don’t know if that… Me coming… Over here and maybe I heard those noise from the war. I don’t know, but then later in life, I saw the lights and I started loving fireworks. So so, [00:41:15] so the tragic then became beautiful.

CROAN: [00:41:19] If you were somewhere between two and three, you almost certainly had some language by then?

HESLIN: [00:41:26] Right, yeah, um, like Vietnamese? But [00:41:30] it was only… I didn’t talk very much. But then they said it’s funny, so ironic. I didn’t talk much then, but, like, you can’t shut me up now, right?

CROAN: [00:41:38] Making up for lost time…

HESLIN: [00:41:39] Exactly.

CROAN: [00:41:41] Yeah. That’s funny. Are you connected at [00:41:45] all to the the larger operation Babylift community?

HESLIN: [00:41:50] You know, I’m not. And I’m sure it would be easy for me to, um, because when I, I found out there was going to be a 40th anniversary and [00:42:00] it was going to be in Holmdel, New Jersey, which I was able to go because my, um, cousins lived in Holmdel, and it was like a no brainer for me to go. It was very nice… probably there was about [00:42:15] probably like 25 to 30 other Vietnamese operation Babylift came to the anniversary. You know, they took a big group picture. Then they did like a kind of like a screen play [00:42:30] of kind of like that time when we were adopted, of the Catholic nuns and like how they were trying to save these children and, you know, the nuns nun’s stories and, you know, survivors. And so it was very [00:42:45] moving and it was very and I was glad I was able to go. Um, and here we are. Pretty soon it’s going to be the 50th anniversary.

CROAN: [00:42:54] And how much time do you spend thinking about, uh, the alternative lives [00:43:00] that you might have lived?

HESLIN: [00:43:02] You know, it’s funny you say that because, you know, I, every once in a while think that… And, you know, every once in a while when my sister and I, you know, when we tease each other, sometimes you’re like, you know, you could be back in Vietnam, [00:43:15] you know, or, you know, a time when we, like, fight or something, but it’s not like a big fight. But, you know, we tease each other. Um, you know, we could have adopted the boy and not you. So, um, that’s always a running joke going on in the family, [00:43:30] but I, you know, I don’t often think about it because I think maybe because I’m so blessed and, you know, I, I’m so I think I was meant to be with the Heslins like it was sometimes God had his way, you [00:43:45] know, like, I, I just can’t think of any other family. Every once in a while glimpse be like, you know, when I found out later on in years, like I was surrendered by my father. Like would I have been still with my dad and being going home to home, [00:44:00] you know, because if he was in military, would have I’ve ever seen him, you know? So, you know, obviously there was a reason it was best choice for him to drop me off at the orphanage because he knew that he probably couldn’t raise [00:44:15] me. I guess it’s a good thing you know that I don’t often think of like, what if my life would have been because I think of my life so great and I can’t have any think of any other life [00:44:30] to be than where I’m at right now. I just feel like it’s just normal, you know? I’m living in normal life and I’m blessed that I was in this family. My mom said as soon as we heard that there was two, uh, orphan babies [00:44:45] coming, we were already then thought that we were going to adopt.

CROAN: [00:44:49] … Even before Maria brought it up. Yeah.

HESLIN: [00:44:53] Okay. And so that’s the thing. I was like, you know, we’re you the first or was Maria the first time. And so they’re [00:45:00] like, we heard it first. But she initially got it going because she saw you on TV.

CROAN: [00:45:05] It sounds like they decided that they wanted to adopt one of those two babies and said, let’s get that one.

HESLIN: [00:45:12] Exactly. That was I want [00:45:15] that one. Exactly. That’s how it is. It’s funny because it’s like, that’s how my sister was. She’s like, I want you.

CROAN: [00:45:30] Leah [00:45:30] Haslam joined me from Washington DC, where she lives near her mom and sister. There’s a lot more to her story, which was pretty heavily edited for this format. If you’d like to hear my entire conversations with her and Bud Trainor and most of the other guests we’ve ever had on the podcast, [00:45:45] head over to our YouTube channel. We’ll be back in two weeks with a very special show, episode number 50.

[00:45:53] We’ll see you then.

Full Interview with Leah Heslin

Full Interview with Colonel (Ret.) Dennis “Bud” Traynor