Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries (including Australia, France, West Germany, and Canada) at the end of the Vietnam War, on April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated, although the actual number has been variously reported. Although it was intended to rescue orphans from the NVA onslaught, many of the children had families, whose only concern was getting them to safety out of South Vietnam. Children were flown into Travis Air Force Base and from there taken to The Presidio of San Francisco for evaluation and care.

In April, 1975, I was in my last year of Nursing School, at the Travis Air Force Base campus of Chico State University. I chose to go down there to finish my coursework because it allowed us to live in Napa, where our family was. It was a good decision, not only from a family perspective, but also because it opened up different, and for me, better, options for my clinical experiences than I would have gotten in Chico with so many students up there. I did nursing clinicals at David Grant Air Force Medical Center, which, although old, was a very dynamic teaching center. Since I was in the Army Student Nurse Program, which made me Active Duty, we were able to use all of the facilities at Travis AFB.

At that time, I was still an RN student, but had used my status as a former military corpsman to allow me to challenge the California LVN boards, which I passed. In addition to my studies, I picked up a few shifts at Queen of the Valley Hospital in Napa when I could. When the call went out for volunteers to help with the children at the Presidio I decided that it was something that I needed to do, for many reasons. Unfortunately, because of my school workload I was only able to pick up a 10 hour shift while help was needed.

The children who didn’t require hospitalization were housed in a gymnasium on the base. It was divided into functional areas and full of people and supplies. It was constant chaos to the nth degree, but there was a lot of energy. Since I had an LVN license and was military, I was allowed to do more care than many of the volunteers, and I happily changed diapers, did minor treatments, fed kids and played with them. It was a very positive experience and I’m glad that I had the opportunity.

This was important to me for several reasons. First off, I always loved kids and considered spending time with them to be worthwhile. I included my young nephews in many of my dating activities. In fact, I don’t think that my wife, Kathy, and I ever went to the drive-in movies back then without my nephews on board. More importantly, this particular group of children, refugees from war-torn Vietnam and witnesses to horrors that even I couldn’t imagine, were special. Having an opportunity to do something positive for them after all of the destruction that I had seen in their country was too important to pass up.

I think that most of us young guys sent to Vietnam loved kids and looked forward to having opportunities to interract with them. Unfortunately, most of us involved in direct combat, by the end of our tours developed a sense of caution that extended even to the children. Stories of children luring American soldiers to their deaths were rampant and, true or not, created a sense of paranoia. I fell prey to that myself, and was far different, and less friendly, by the end of my year in Vietnam.

As a medic, I not only went into/through villages on regular patrols, but also participated in MedCAP (Medical Civic Action Program) missions. For the larger of those, a group of medics and at least one doctor would go into a village and spend the day seeing and treating the locals for medical problems that we could identify. Sometimes they would bring out a dentist from basecamp to give dental care, which mostly consisted of pulling teeth. It was quite primitive and I tried not to watch. Although I considered participating to be positive, it was troubling at the same time. The problem was that it was hit-and-run with no continuity. We didn’t know whether our patients would get better, because we had no mechanism for follow-up. Also of concern was the fact that it was possible that after we were gone the VC would enter the village, confiscate any medications we had left, and possibly abuse the villagers for cooperating with US troops. During my tour I participated in MedCAP missions ranging from just a few of us medics with our doc and some infantry support in smaller, more remote villages, to more personnel and services at some of the larger villages closer to basecamp. Besides those more formal situations, most of us medics did medical treatment on the fly when the need/opportunity arose on our patrols.

Whenever we went through a village in non-combat mode the kids would gather around the soldiers. They recognized medics because of our Combat Medical Badges and medical aid bags that we carried. The word went out on the jungle telegraph (pardon the expression). One incident that I remember fondly was a seal and search mission. We sealed the village and the ARVN soldiers went through it, looking for VC and weapons. They did find a few of both, as usual. That area was a hotbed of VC activity. When the villagers were released they came out and interracted with the American soldiers. A young boy approached me, gave a little bow and said, “Bac-si (doctor). Beaucoups dau (much pain)”, and held out his hand. I went over to him and examined his hand, which I found had an infected cut on it. I used clean(ish) water from a canteen I hadn’t drunk from and soap to clean it up, put antibiotic ointment on it, and applied a clean dressing. Then I gave him a piece of candy that I carried for occasions like that and sent him on his way. About half an hour later I heard multiple children’s voices laughing and shouting “Bac-si!” and turned around to find my new friend with four or five other children, headed straight for me. I examined each of them in turn. While their assorted maladies were underwhelming, their energy and humor were good medicine for me right then. Each of them got candy when I was done examining them and I was rewarded with a hug from a brave little girl and enthusiastic waves from the others as they went back to their routine activities. It was nice to be with the children and to have a few moments to feel like a kid myself.