Dearly Beloved,

First and foremost, I would like to thank my LORD and savior JESUS CHRIST for allowing the events of the "Vietnam Babylift" to happen 35 years ago, it's for his glory and honor!! Also, I would like to thank all of the personnel that were involved, directly and indirectly; the nurses and doctors of the civilian and military, officers and NCOs of all branches of United States and South Vietnamese military, mechanics, and so many many others!!

Our journey started back in 1975 when my mom and older sister took my younger brother (7.5 yrs old) and me (9 yrs old) to an orphanage in Saigon. My brother's Vietnamese name was Long Tuong-Thach and mine was Hai Tuong-Thach. I don't remember too much about the orphanage except it had a blue-steel gate, an old, skinny Vietnamese man-gatekeeper, and a little water fountain just inside of the property of the orphanage. My mom told us to go and check out the water fountain, and the next thing I remembered, we turned around and they were not there anymore! That night my brother and I couldn't sleep and was wondering what's going to happen to us next. Immediately the next morning all of us were taken in a bluish-gray bus to the Saigon airport and boarded a USAF transport plane (C-141 Starlifter) and took off for Clark Air Force base in the Philippines. {About two years later we were told by our American, adopted dad (Bruce Bosworth) that we were supposed to be on the C-5A Galaxy but since our mom dropped us off at the orphanage an hour too late so we had to wait the for next day to leave Vietnam].

We landed at Clark Air Force base and were escorted in a dark-green bus to an aircraft hangar where we spent the night sleeping on the floor full of mattresses. The next day we left for either Guam or Hawaii which I don't remember. On board that flight I remembered my brother asked me "Where's United States?" and I, as an older brother I thought I knew everything, I pointed to the moon and said "there it is!". Later on that flight we were served dinner in a grayish-paper box which had a piece of fried chicken breast, a small can of grapefruit juice, and some type of canned fruit (all of which was very foreign to a couple of older Vietnamese-American boys!). I remembered the first thing I tasted was the fried chicken, which I didn't enjoy, so I put it back in the box with the rest of everything else and stuck it under my seat! .......

I could go on forever, but as they say "that's another story." Thank you for lending your ears. Have a blessed life!

David Bosworth
Hutchinson, KS
Email: bosworthd@hutchcc.edu