This is a long article. For the sake of saving space, I’m just going to post a few excerpts. You can read the entire article here.
In April 1975, two years after the Americans signed a cease-fire accord with Vietnam, North Vietnamese troops spread throughout the South. The country was falling apart and there were few resources to care for the children who had been abandoned. As the war ended, hundreds of thousands of citizens fled the country.
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries during April 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, more than 2,000 infants and children had been evacuated. According to statistics, more youngsters were adopted in the U.S. from Vietnam during this short period in history than the total for the past 30 years.
What’s bugging me about this is the impression the article gives right from the beginning that the children brought over on OBL were all “abandoned”. Yeah, call me nit-picky, but think about the picture that comes to mind. The VC are coming, “abandoned” children, Vietnamese fleeing the country, enter Operation Babylift. And yes, I will continue to harp on this because I don’t buy into the OBL being just about saving “orphans”.
However, in 2004 a new law was implemented and the adoptions ceased. Then on June 21, 2005 the United States and Vietnam signed an agreement laying the groundwork for adoptions to resume. Finally, on Jan. 25, 2006, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi issued the first orphan immigrant visa to a Vietnamese child adopted by an American family under the new agreement.
Let us not forget that Vietnam has NOT signed into the Hague Convention. The Department of State warns about the possibility of document fraud and how it “can greatly complicate the ability of Vietnamese and U.S. officials involved in the intercountry adoption process to identify the child and confirm his/her parentage to a sufficient level of comfort to protect against child-buying or other inappropriate, illegal or prohibited practices.” There should still be concerns about adoptions from Vietnam, but that’s a topic for another day.
What’s killing me is the way the article ends.
Most Americans remember the televised nightmare of the Vietnam War. Wounded soldiers, wounded in both body and soul, coming home to an America that no longer supported them. Young Vietnamese children carrying explosives provided by the enemy within their own people. The massacre at My Lai.
With memories like these, even now why would anyone want to revisit the nightmare of Vietnam? The answer is simple: The children.
Am I the only one sitting here going, “…and your point is?” This article screams of “savior mentality”, but that’s just me. You can decide for yourselves.
That ending is the pits. Apart from the savior stuff, it’s as if Vietnam is only about the War, only a negative in the historical scale, the rest of its ancient history and culture forgotten.