Chapter 1: Lost Memories

I remember looking through the tall gate with the black iron rods and seeing the fading figure of my mother walking away. I couldn't remember my feelings at that moment for I didn't have any reasons to believe she wouldn't come back later and pick up my two brothers and one sister she left behind. I didn't feel at lost for any feelings or shed one drop of tears from my eyes, nor did I understand the day when my brothers were being led back into the compound with such commotion outside. It was clear to me after many years that my two brothers ran away and went home, and it was my mother who led them back, after that moment, I never saw my mother again.

Panic had stricken the peaceful surroundings of our compound. I do not remember being carted away, I can only remember opening my eyes and hearing the noise of a large American Air Force cargo plane with its back doors wide open. I can feel the forceful wind coming from the roaring engine blades, I feel the bodies of others pushing on me, but I must have felt calm among the chaos with the presence of my siblings next to me. I had no idea that the next several hundred steps forward will change my life forever.

There was not any difference between days and nights in my memory, and my mind was oblivious to a war, which was claiming thousands of lives and ravaging the countryside. Good men were dying thousand of miles away from home to save a country they did not know, along with the lives of my brothers, sister and myself. I didn't have a choice to leave, but I was lucky because I didn’t have one. Today, I cannot imagine what my life would be like if I stayed in Vietnam? I am only allowed to fathom such imagination today because I live in America.

The inside of the plane was massive. My brothers and sister took a seat on the side that resembled a long bench. Babies in baskets and blankets were put on the bare wooden floor in the middle. Chaos was in the air. Time flashed by quick and before I knew it, the doors had shut and the plane was airborne.

*From April 3 to April 19, 1975, Operation Babylift flew more than 3,000 children to new homes in America, Europe, Canada and Australia. On the second day of the airlift, a C5-A cargo jet carrying 228 orphans crashed into a rice paddy 20 minutes into its flight from Tan Son Nhut Air Base. Forty-nine adults and 78 orphans died.*

I have only one recollection on the plane that I carry in my memory. I had wandered from my seat and happen to do my searching toward the cockpit, when suddenly I could go no further except taking a ladder upward. Up the ladder I went and to my astonishment sat three men. They all look back at me with a grin, but I could not understand their foreign voices. One pulled a box from nearby and gave me something red and round, and I was more than happy to accept after a few moments of staring at this foreign object in his hand. I hurried back to my seat and asked my brothers “what did I have in my hand?” I never got to taste such a delicious fruit as they devoured it in front of me.

I had no concept of time, as the next thing I knew was looking at my endless surroundings of babies and children in a large complex. The truth was I had landed in the United States, somewhere in California, waiting to be adopted along with my siblings.

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