Escape from Saigon (8 page)

Most of the Holt staff had been up all night, trying to complete the task of gathering documents and supplies for the children who would be leaving on the Pan American Airlines 747 jumbo jet. Of the four hundred children traveling on the plane, nearly three hundred were infants or toddlers. All but a dozen had adoptive families waiting for them in the United States, and those without adoptive families would soon have them.

By midmorning the first floor and courtyard play area were jammed with foster families and children. Because of the heat and confusion, most of the babies were crying. All that previous week parents and guardians had come to the Holt Center, asking the Americans to take their children along when they left the country. Staff members had to turn down such requests, making only a few exceptions for children who were Amerasian, had the proper paperwork to get out of the country, and had no parent or guardian who could care for them.

Long and the other older children going on the flight helped entertain the younger children, playing games with them on the playground. Long had changed into his new shirt and pants. They were so hot!

He was running an errand for one of the teachers when he heard Lan talking to one of the Americans. “We can take your daughter, Tai, with us,” the American said to her. “She has the necessary paperwork, and we have a long list of approved families wishing to adopt our children. We'll find her a good home. But you must decide by noon. We have only a few spaces left on the flight.”

Lan hid her face in her hands. “How can I live without my little daughter?”

The staff member's voice was full of sympathy. “I wish you could go, too, Lan,” she said, “but after yesterday's crash, and the concern about sabotage at the airport, it's become almost impossible to help Vietnamese nationals like you get out of the country.”

Long continued on his errand, troubled by what he had heard. Poor Lan! What would she do?

At noon, the buses for the airport began arriving to pick up the children and the fifty escorts who would care for them on the flight. Escorts had been recruited from the community of Americans living in Saigon who wanted to return to the United States.

The children were lined up, and one more time, names were checked against a list. The air was filled with the wailing of foster mothers as they touched their babies for the last time. As the first bus started to leave, a foster mother tried to pull herself up on the wire mesh covering the bus windows, hoping for one last glimpse of the baby she had cared for. Someone pulled her away, and other mothers moved close to comfort her.

Long was in line to get on the next bus. His teacher, Miss Anh, came over to say her final goodbye.

“Will you be okay?” he asked anxiously. He saw her lips tremble, but she said brightly, “No need to worry about me. My family is here, and we will be fine. You have a good life in America.”

They hugged one last time. As Miss Anh moved away, Long saw Lan leading four-year-old Tai. She was whispering something to the little girl. Tai looked confused, but she did not cry.

Stopping by Long, Lan bent down to her daughter. “This is Long,” she said softly. “He is going on the plane, too, just like you.”

Long tried to smile reassuringly at the little girl, and he waved to her as Lan helped her find a place at the back of the line. He thought he had never seen a face look as sad as Lan's.

Suddenly it was his turn to board the bus. He slid into a seat and scrunched himself against the window to make room for an American woman he didn't know, who had two small children on her lap. He wished Miss Anh were coming to America. Parting from her was another goodbye, and it left him with that familiar feeling of emptiness.

It was very hot in the strong noonday sun, and the bus was so jammed with babies, children, and adults, that Long felt he was gasping for breath. Finally they began to move. This was it. He was on his way! He tried to catch a final glimpse of the Holt Center and his teacher, but he was on the wrong side of the bus, and could see nothing.

He looked out at passing traffic. Somewhere in Saigon was his grandmother, but he knew she was a long way in the other direction. He didn't want to think about her, so he watched people on the street instead. He had already overheard enough adult conversations to know they were worried that someone might try to stop the bus or take it over. The adults were grim-faced. Long could feel the tension.

The bus inched along through the dense traffic. People were everywhere, more people than ever before. He wondered where they were all going. Was there actually anywhere to go?

When the bus finally arrived at the airport gate, guards ordered it to stop. Long knew that getting through the gates was a big worry for the Holt officials. The guards didn't have to let them through. Almost afraid to breathe, Long watched as the guards came aboard the bus. They wore army uniforms, and their guns were ready at their sides. In loud voices they demanded to see the official documents for the passengers. They studied the papers while babies screamed in the stifling heat. Long wondered why everything was taking so long. When would the bus start to move again? Through the window, he saw a crowd of Vietnamese outside the airport gates. Most held on to suitcases. They watched the bus silently. Long thought they must know that no one on the bus could help them.

Finally the guards were satisfied. As they got off the bus, Long realized he'd been holding his breath. The guards waved the bus through the gates, directing it onto the open tarmac. Armed soldiers were everywhere. From his window, Long saw a thin trail of smoke in the distance. Someone said it was from the crash of the C-5A the day before, and Long felt his stomach tighten.

Slowly the bus made its way toward the gigantic airplane that stood waiting. Long could not believe its size. It was as tall as a three-story building. How would it ever get off the ground? How could it stay up in the air?

The moment the bus stopped next to the plane, the adults sprang into action. They carried the small children and directed the older ones.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”
Everyone understood the urgency, for danger from incoming fire was all around them. Small children were handed to waiting adults and whisked aboard the plane. When it was Long's turn, he moved as quickly as he could, down the bus steps, then up the steps into the plane, guided by adults talking so fast in nonstop English that he couldn't follow what they were saying.

Once inside the plane, he didn't even have time to look around before an adult pointed him toward a row where he should sit. He moved into the seat next to the window, glad to be out of the way. It was even hotter inside the plane than it had been on the bus. Long's clothes were damp and sticking to him. The air-conditioning could not come on until the plane lifted into the air.

Adults worked quickly to get the children aboard. One of them asked Long to assist. He left his bag on his seat and helped settle the small children in the rows right around him. Working with the babies was hard because they wiggled so much. The tiniest ones were in bassinets the flight crew strapped securely into the seats.

Long's face was wet with sweat. All through the plane, babies screamed at the top of their lungs, adding to the chaos and confusion. He wished they wouldn't cry so much. But you couldn't reason with babies. All you could do was try to soothe them. Long had better luck with children who were a little older. Most of the adults working around him spoke English, but Long knew the children were used to Vietnamese. “Don't worry,” he assured them in their own language. “Soon we'll be in America, and you will have a new family, and you will be happy.”

Volunteers help settle children before takeoff aboard one of the military cargo planes that participated in Operation Babylift

Holt staff, escorts, and the flight crew hurried through the aisle, trying to get everyone in a seat so the plane could take off. They counted the children, and then counted again. Long knew they were worried the enemy would start shelling the airport. He was too.
Hurry, hurry!

More buses arrived, more children and adults. He saw Tai come on board and waved to her, but she didn't notice him. She was taken clear to the front of the airplane. Over and over the children were counted. Finally the counting stopped and Long returned to his seat and settled in. It was really going to happen! He was going to America!

The view from his window was one of the gigantic wings. As he looked at it, he suddenly realized that enemy soldiers could climb right onto it and break the windows and get in! What should he do?

The sound of the engines revving up startled him. It was so loud, he put his hands over his ears. Frightened by the noise, several children around him became hysterical. Escorts tried to comfort them. Suddenly, the wing flaps began to drop. To Long it looked as if the wing was broken. That meant the plane was like a bird with a broken wing, and it would crash, just like the plane did yesterday! He tried to swallow his fear, but his heart was beating hard. Maybe he should tell the pilot. No, he would be watchful. If it looked like the plane couldn't fly, he would let the pilot know.

When the plane started to taxi down the runway, Long held his breath and tightly gripped the arms of his seat. He kept an eye on the ground outside, watching to make sure enemy soldiers didn't start to throw grenades or fire rockets or storm across the tarmac to capture the plane.

The huge jet began to lift into the air. The angle of takeoff was so sharp that Long felt blood rush to his head. The skin on his face felt pulled and taut. It was almost as though he was lying on his back. Now even the crying children grew quiet.

Long thought his ears would explode. The roar of the plane was so loud, he couldn't hear anything else. Finally the plane began to level out. For a moment everyone on board was silent. Then, as if on cue, the adults broke out in spontaneous cheering. “We're safe now,” someone said. “God bless the Vietnamese people, and God bless America,” someone else said. Through his window, Long checked the wing. No enemy soldiers. No one trying to get in. They were safe!

As he joined the cheering around him, he realized he hadn't been the only one to feel afraid. Now he could smile again. He was leaving a land of war and heading to a land of promise and peace.

When the air-conditioning system finally began to fill the cabin with cooling air, Long heard adults sighing with relief. Then they were on their feet and immediately busy, tending to all the babies, who needed to be fed and changed and comforted.

Long looked out the window at the lush green country falling away far below. In spite of his excitement that he was going to America, he knew he was leaving behind all he had ever known.

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine his mother and Ba wrapping their arms around him and telling him everything would be okay. If only they could be with him.

He caught one last glimpse of his homeland, and then clouds covered everything. He took the photo of his new family from his bag and slowly, one at a time, touched the five faces looking back at him.

In a country far away, they were waiting for him. They were his future.

8

T
HE
F
LIGHT TO
F
REEDOM

Long would learn much later that the giant Pan Am 747 was almost the length of a football field. The crew had stocked the airplane with diapers, formula, milk, and changes of clothing for their youngest passengers. There were even coloring books, crayons, and other art supplies to entertain the older children. The galley was ready to serve everyone hamburgers when it was mealtime.

The flight carried 409 children and sixty adults. To care for all the children, the escorts had divided up the rows, and they spent the entire sixteen-hour flight attending to the children's needs.

“Fortunately, older children like Long could look out for themselves,” says John Williams, the Holt administrator who was on the plane. “I was caring for ten babies by myself, with an occasional assist from the flight crew, so there was rarely a moment's rest. But it was happy work. We were so relieved to be on our way and to have all the children with us, though we were very distressed by what was happening back in Saigon.”

Mostly, Long stayed in his seat because the aisle, which had thick red carpet, was always congested with staff and escorts rushing back and forth. Once a flight attendant took him on a brief visit to the luxurious upstairs lounge, where normally passengers could dine at tables set with linen cloths. For this special Operation Babylift flight, it had been turned into an intensive care medical unit. Volunteer doctors and nurses attended to the many children who were sick or who needed special hydration during the trip. All the medical equipment amazed Long. Isolettes held babies hooked up to tubes and machines. One toddler had a broken leg, and an older child was being treated for a severe burn.

Back in his seat, Long passed the time playing with his toy cars and making art projects for his new parents with the supplies given to him. He tried to sleep, but felt too excited. Besides, it was so noisy on the plane that he could hardly think, much less sleep. All those babies and all that crying! At any time, so many of them were wet, hungry, or just wanted to be held.