Published in the Charleston Gazette-Mail, July 6, 2018

Forty-three years ago, a powerful, wealthy nation was engaged in a long

conflict with a small, poorer country, but in spite of its great resources, the

larger nation still could not claim victory. It had to evacuate its army, sink

its equipment into the ocean, shred classified documents, and return to its

people, stunned, angry, and hurt. People of both nations suffered; parents

from each side were separated from their children and refugees were left

adrift on the seas or to live abroad in exile, as deserters. The United

States, the dominant country, felt defeated, if not in war, in spirit, and it

ultimately lost 58,220 of its own children, in addition to 1,597 still officially

missing in action.

We left South Vietnam, but not before a final gesture of humanity---perhaps

a small act of atonement for some of our bombing, napalm, and war

crimes. We evacuated over 10,000 Vietnamese babies who were orphans

of the war. If it had not been for the destruction wrought over a decade of

conflict, this act would have been remembered as an example of what can

be accomplished by people when they are committed to the survival of the

human family, by tending to all children, regardless of their nationality or

status.

Even after the billions of dollars we spent making war, Americans found

resources to spare, and during one of the darkest times in our history,

Operation Baby Lift was put into action. Civilian and military sectors

coordinated personnel, supplies, volunteers and jet fuel in a heroic 

last minute mission to gather these children and bring them to safety.

 It took nearly 30 trips of 30-hour flights to get them, some of whom were 

never properly identified as orphans and could have even been children

 of our “enemy.” They were temporarily housed at Presidio Army base in 

San Francisco to be stabilized, identified if possible, medicated as needed,

clothed, and processed for the welcoming arms that waited for them

throughout the world.

This expedition was organized by Republican President Gerald Ford and,

for better or worse, it was done out of the deepest fear that these children

would be put in harm's way and abandoned in the chaos of war, and out of

the deepest conviction that their fate was our responsibility. The image of

innocent children suffering was rendered intolerable. Today, some of those

adoptees still hunt for their biological Vietnamese parents; but the rescue

was done in the highest manifestation of our biological instincts, to protect

children by any and all available means

That was April, 1975. In April, 2018, another Republican President,

imagining that we are at war with smaller, poorer countries and insisting

that we are being invaded and infested, now incarcerates refugees from

those countries. Many of them were hoping to escape hardship and

violence in their own homelands. Some of those trying to get here,

trespassing on American soil, brought along their sons and daughters in

their own biological instinct to protect them.

But those children will not be rescued or brought to safety by our country.

There will be no Operation Baby Lift for them. They are not orphans or

prisoners of war, but yet they are held captive and terrorized by separation

of family, the weapon of destruction we have chosen to deploy just for

political leverage. These children have no treaty, no standing, and no

assurance that guardians will be waiting to ensure that their lives might be

enriched after this tragedy. Reunification will likely be preceded by an

extended, frustrating bureaucratic process of searching for their parents,

and parents searching for their children.

The circumstances of these two situations do not need to be identical for

the analogy to be obvious. It’s the people in power and their policies that

make the results polar opposites. Today, we’re still big, powerful and

wealthy, but something has changed. 

Which country did those refugees think they were fleeing to: The America 

of  1975 that followed its conscience, or the unrecognizable America 

we’ve become today?