The Moth - The Moth Radio Hour: The Vietnam War

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

In this special hour, three stories from the Vietnam War Era. A troop comes under attack deep in the Vietnamese jungle; a triage nurse does her best to save the lives of soldiers; and a young man tries to save his little brothers as Saigon falls. Hosted by The Moth’s Senior Director, Jenifer Hixson. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Hosted by: Jenifer Hixson Storytellers: Dave Dillard and his company are trekking through the Vietnamese jungle when they hear an unusual sound. Edie Meeks comes to face the carnage of war. Jason Trieu tries to save his family as the U.S. Army retreats and Saigon falls.

Attention Houston! You have listened to our podcast and our radio hour, but did you know the Moth has live storytelling events at Wearhouse Live? The Moth has opened Mike's storytelling competitions called Story Slams that are open to anyone with a five-minute story to share on the night's theme. Upcoming themes include love hurts, stakes, clean, and pride. GoodLamoth.org forward slash Houston to experience a live show near you. That's from PRX. This is the Malthradio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This hour we're hearing stories about the Vietnam War. This is the Malthradio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This hour we're hearing stories about the Vietnam War. This is the Malthradio Hour. I'm Jennifer Hickson. This hour we're hearing stories about the Vietnam War. This is the Malthradio Hour, I'm Jennifer Hickson.

This hour we're hearing stories about the Vietnam War from some of the people who were there. These stories were originally told in a moth event we dedicated to the conflict in Vietnam. While putting the hour together, I noticed another theme, Brothers. Each of the three stories in this hour involves brotherhood, the kind of bonds forged in foxholes as well as in families. In searching for people to tell stories, I often found the stories are not easy for people to share. One veteran respectfully declined my invitation. He said, while Vietnam was a divisive war, fought by a divided nation, some of the things I witnessed suffered and participated in have left me scarred. I've been in treatment for chronic post-traumatic stress disorder five times since 1970.

While the physical scars of being wounded twice have healed, the emotional scars have not. Our first storyteller, Dave Dillard, was also not eager to speak of his service for a long, long time. He was 17 when he to speak of his service for a long, long time. He was 17 when he volunteered for the army and became a paratrooper. He served for eight years, two tours of combat duty in Vietnam, with the airborne infantry. When he returned to civilian life in 1974, he felt that most civilians couldn't relate to him. So, like many soldiers, he didn't talk about his experiences.

Roughly a decade later, he reconnected with a bunch of the surviving soldiers from Delta Company, and they spoke openly about their experiences, some for the first time. Many of the men remembered a particularly harrowing night. Dave's going to tell us his part of that story. Here's Dave Dillard, live at the moth in Austin, Texas. It was about 4.30 in the afternoon, and I heard a rooster crow. Now it's not unusual to hear a rooster crow at 4.30 in the afternoon. I grew up on a farm.

A rooster crow most any time it wants to. But you see, where I was I shouldn't be hearing a a rooster crow Because chickens don't live in the jungle And that's why I was with 80 other men in a airborne infantry company About 80 perra troopers Out there chasing North Vietnamese army regulars who had just swept across the border of Cambodia and Made their way into Saigon and took part in a battle of it, maybe later known as the Dedefensive of 1968. Now our job was to, since the offensive was put down and these men were sent back, packing into the jungle,

we were out there to find them and try and catch them before they went back across the border. And we knew that the Vietnamese were notorious for carrying their livestock with them to feed their army. And to hear a rooster crow meant that we could be very close. It was March of 1968 and I was 18 years old. I was a radio telephone operator. That's an RTO for my company commander, the captain. We called him the old man, but he wasn't very old. He was only about 25 himself. But my job was to stay with him.

I was his ears. I was his mouth. I was his confidant. I was his bodyguard and sometimes his cook. But I would always be right there with him when we were on a mission and we were on a mission. And we were very, very deep in the jungle, very dense jungle in some places, triple canopy.

And it becomes so horrendously humid and hot that it's very difficult. And it takes a lot of water. And we were in need constantly. And so when you come across a clearing in the jungle that's large enough to take on a helicopter, then you take advantage of that commodity and you resupply. And that's what we did. Well, that's where I heard that rooster crawl. And then we decided, the commander decided that it was time to move away from that clearing.

When my phone, my radio lit up with a call from the point they said, we just saw a man carrying two buckets of water. He dropped the water and he disappeared into the jungle. I thought a man carrying two buckets of water and I heard a rooster crow and I thought this could be a very serious situation. The people reported back that they had movement up front, and that we were very close to possibly making contact. And we should be prepared. I heard then a short volley of what I thought was M16 fire, and that was followed by an eruption,

an absolute firestorm of withering, firestorm of hail, of bullets, and explosions that I have never could have imagined. What we didn't know is that we had just made contact with a reinforced regiment of North Vietnamese regular infantry that numbered somewhere between 1500 and 2000 enemies altars, and we were in serious trouble. Of course, the reports came back immediately that we had serious numbers of casualties,

and the old man he bolted. He went right straight up to the column, right up to the front, and I was right on his tail, and that's where I saw the carnage. We had taken five men down killed and about 20 wounded in 15 minutes. And it was necessary for me, the RTO, to get into action. We needed to metavac these people. We needed to get them out. The old man looked at me and he said, go back down that trail, take that radio and get those engineers to open up a little clearing. We're too far from where we resupply to make it back.

It's getting dark. Get these men out of here. So I did exactly that. I went down the trail and we got the engineers busy. And in no time at all, they had blown an area almost big enough to accommodate a helicopter. And soon we had the first troper there. He was not able to land, but he was hovering low enough where I thought we could probably get that first man in.

They threw off all their gurneys, and that was great because we started loading up the wounded, and I had the first man and with a helper on the back and extending up to try and get him on this helicopter and I could not reach, he could not get low enough. And also, I was hearing a sound that was coming and hitting the side of that helicopter. It was being hit by small arm ammunition from AK-47 fire coming up from way deeper in the jungle. And I could not risk losing that machine and having it fall, right where we are. We had to abort. We waved off the helicopter and it went away.

I turned around and got back to my radio and I tried to call up headquarters and give them the idea of a report on our condition and what was going on. And I looked around and about that time I saw this, black streak come across in front of my eyes and it landed about 15 feet in front of me. One of the engineers said, what was that? He had seen it and at that time it exploded. And it completely engulfed me and the rest in fire.

I was blown back about 10 feet. And all I could think is I went back is this is how it ends. But I got conscious. And I came to, and I looked at my body, and I was OK, except my head. My head was full of this ring, this intense ring and I felt my ears and I looked at my hands and my ears were bleeding and then I realized it. I was deaf. I couldn't hear a thing. I was in this this game this life-threatening game, and I was benched. I couldn't take part.

What was I going to do? And I looked, and I couldn't hear, and I saw the chaos, and the confusion going on. More wounded, corning in. And people there, I could do nothing. And I started to sink into this despair. And then all of a sudden I felt the hands on my shoulder and turned me around. And it was the whole man. And he looked at me and he had me sit down and it's such a take it easy.

I could read his lips and the way he was treating me. And I sat down and I waited and he visibly started directing the people with all of these wounded and organizing it to go back down the trail and so they started down the trail. That was not to be. The North Vietnamese had already cut us off. They had encircled us on that side of it and they set up an ambush on that trail. And when our new people, the leads in that column reached into their hill room, they initiated that ambush. And there were more dead, more wounded. And now they started

flooding back. And darkness was upon us, and the darker it got. The more we understood that we were in very serious situation. As the darkness fell and the troops came running, coming back in from down the trail, the old man had all of them circle up inside this little small perimeter we had was no more than 35 meters across. And in the middle we put all of the wounded. At this point we were up to around 30 plus wounded. And we had all the wounded in there.

He collected all the grenades and the word came out. We have to observe night fire discipline. That is when we do not use our direct fire weapons, our M16s or our heavy machine guns, because the flash depressors on the front, as they are fired, will give away your position. Our only hope to survive this situation was to stay concealed. And we did. We threw all the grenades in the middle and we started throwing them out in different directions. The enemy had no idea where we were exactly and it was that which was keeping us concealed. But they kept probing us and they kept probing us and they kept trying to get us

to shoot. They would shoot their AK-47s and they were so close that we could see the faces of those people as they fired, but we held. We used our discipline and we held and we did not return fire. And it was an amazing situation that I was in. Because as my hearing came back, I began to realize that we have more issues than just the enemy out there finding us because our wounded were making all that's noise and the medics were working feverishly to try and keep them quiet. I must tell you that during that night I saw acts of heroism done by men that never had a desire to be a hero. They were amazing. And as we continued to go forward in this evening, we had support from the air. We did have support from the air force and their fighters, and we had artillery. But we were very much alone in the middle of this. About four o'clock in the morning,

we figured that maybe they've cut it off. We had no more people probing us. So we took that opportunity to bring in one helicopter. We had been able to enlarge our perimeter a little more, and we were able to get that helicopter in, it landed. And we were able to get all as many as we could on top of that first helicopter. And by golly it took off and off it went. And we were amazed.

In came the second and the third and by 5.30 in the morning all were gone. And by first light, in came another company, an American company that relieved us. We had made it. We survived. But your feeling of joy and that flooding of knowing that you survived as soon as soon will pass because we have a daunting task ahead of us. It is at this point that we need to go out and find and identify those Americans that had lost their lives. Those friends with broken bodies, and we did. We went out and found them. There were ten of them.

We wrapped them in ponchos, and we put them in the middle of the perimeter right where we had it wounded, not but a few hours before. And when they were all collected, and while we were waiting for those helicopters to come and pick them up, the tears flowed. Now, it was over, and we could let that emotion come back into ourselves and the tears by

every man. It was a very hard thing to imagine. But the helicopter came, we loaded them, and off they went for their last ride back to the United States and to their families. It's not over. Every infantryman knows that there's always one more job that must be accomplished. We have to go out and find the enemy dead. And we need to go through their pockets and their pouches and their packs and we need to collect

intelligence material which we rarely found. No, I will tell you what we found. We found letters from home, we found diaries and always, always, pictures. Pictures of their wives, pictures of their moms and dads, pictures of their families, pictures of their children, pictures of their farms, pictures of their pets and their animals at home.

And you look at those and if you're a human being at all, you have to say to yourself, my God, that the same is us. And we are all caught up just small people in this meat grinder called war. And this is the only thing that we have, that we must survive this, to tell this story. Well, the company survived to fight another day, and this was the ending. The old man, the old man, he was decorated with a congressional metal bonner. That's Paul Buca. And many people have come to me over the years

and they've said, Dave, you know, he won the Medal of Honor. He wears RTO, you were the man, you were right with him, what'd you get? And I always answer the same way. I got life. I got to go home. I got to see my mom and my dad again. I saw my brothers and my sisters.

I got in an education. I got married. I got children. I got a ranch in East Texas. I got a pond. I got ducks. I got bees, I got horses, and I've got chickens. And when my old rooster decides to crow at 4.30

in the afternoon, that takes me back to a different time and a different place and a situation that changed my life. Thank you. That was Dave Dillard. There were 85 men in Delta Company and they were up against North Vietnamese regular Army regiment of more than 1500. They lost 10 men that night and 47 were injured. These days, many of the men of Delta Company's day in touch and continue to honor their fallen brothers. Dave's most recent project is the Home Town Release

Foundation. They send film crews out to gather the stories of active duty military members and their families for release on their local television stations. To see a picture of Dave and some of the guys from Delta Company and to find a link to a longer radio documentary put together about that night in the jungle, please visit our website, themoth.org. After the second time Dave told this story live on the Moth stage, he admitted something to me.

Dave's hearing was compromised in the war and his particularly troublesome on the phone. So when I first called him and said I was from the Moth, he heard that I was calling from the Mosque. He told his son, someone from a mosque in New York City called me today and invited me to come and talk about the Vietnam War. Isn't that wonderful? I love this about Dave. He knows that talking helps healing, and so when anyone calls, the mosque, the moon,

he wants to share his experiences, and he says, sign me up. When we return, we'll hear from one of the nearly 10,000 women who served in Vietnam. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and presented by PRX. Our next story in this hour about the Vietnam War comes from Edie Meeks. Though their stories are not often heard, nearly 10,000 women in uniforms served in country during the conflict, many of them were just out of school. Here's Edie Meeks, live in New York City. It was March 19th, 2004.

And I was at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum waiting for the Huey helicopter to come in. They were going to be honoring Huey helicopter and accepting it into their collection. And it should be honored. It really rescued an awful lot of the young men. And all of a sudden, I hear this whop, whop, whop, whop. It's a very distinctive sound that Huey has. And it comes in and it flies low over the mall. And it goes past, which it wasn't supposed to do. But since it was being flown by Vietnam vets, they were going to do whatever they wanted.

So they went and flew over the wall. Buh, buh, buh. And it came in and landed, and the doors opened. And all these guys and fatigues came out. And all of a sudden, I was back in Saigon, 1968. I joined the Army Nurse Corps in February of 1968. For several reasons, one was, I'm from Minnesota,

and Midwesterners like to help. But secondly, because I had two younger brothers of draughtable age. My brother Tom was a Marine. He had been drafted and joined the Marines. And my brother Charlie was a war protester. And I was proud of them both. But I figured I didn't know if the war was right or wrong.

But I knew that if my brothers were wounded, I wanted somebody there who wanted to take care of them. And so I joined the Army Nurse Corps. I joined with the guarantee that I would be sent to Vietnam. In July of 1968, I arrived in Saigon. I was at the third field hospital in Saigon in the intensive care unit. Now I knew I could do this.

I mean, I had worked emergency room and OR and I see you and I delivered babies in British Columbia. I could handle just about anything. And the first day was okay. We had a few casualties and that was all right. But the second day But the second day, more casualties came. And the third day, and the fourth day, and they just kept coming. And you would hear that Huey, and you'd know it was bad news. There was one young man that I took care of. This was in October of 1968, and he had a terrible abdominal wound, and he had a letter from home, and he asked me to read the letter. And it was his mom writing and saying that his dad had just

come in with a family dog from fesent hunting. And I said to him, I bet you would have been with him, huh? And he smiled a little and nodded. And then she goes on to tell a little bit about the family and the news of the town. And at the very end, she says, and we're so proud of you son. And three days later, he was dead.

You had to just keep working. You had to just keep going. Don't think about it. You don't have time to grieve. You don't have time to feel bad. I know you took care of that guy for a long time and he's dead now. But you've got some more coming in to tomorrow and the next day and the next. And we never talked about it But you've got some more coming in tomorrow and the next day and the next. And we never talked about it amongst ourselves. And then there was this 19-year-old young soldier who had been drafted, I had asked him.

And he had a severe growing injury. And he turned to me and he said, but Lieutenant, I haven't even had a girlfriend. Twelve hours a day, six days a week, was the minimum that we worked over there for a year. And as these guys kept coming in, the disappointment and the anger and the rage that I had against the Army and our government. Got larger and larger. I had thought that the army and our government would value

each of these boys. These were my brothers. These were citizen soldiers. And yet they seemed to be throwing them away, they'd come in and say they aren't letting us win, but you just kept going. The nurses that were coming in country said, when you go home, be sure and take an outfit with you. Don't be seen in your uniform. You will not be welcomed in your uniform.

And so one day, I was working hard in the ICU. I get on a plane in my fatigues and combat boots. I fly 24 hours, and then I'm in San Francisco. I get off the plane, go to the ladies' room, take my uniform off, throw it in the trash, and put a dress on. And I go to Minnesota where everybody expects me to be normal, to be the same person I was when I left.

And I wasn't. I still had six months left and they sent me to Tacoma, Washington, to Madigan General Hospital. There was a big basic training camp there and I thought that the death was over. I was finished with seeing sorrow and sadness, but it wasn't over. Basic training could bring a person meningitis. And we would get young men in who had waited too long, or their sergeants wouldn't let them come, or whatever the reason. And they'd come in, and they'd be so sick. And they'd die. And this time, you'd see the families come, be wildered.

They hadn't even gone anywhere, and they were dead. So I left the Army February of 1970, and of course I was perfectly fine. I had no problems at all. I got married, moved to New York. I was very lucky. I have two wonderful children. They're here tonight. And I thought I was doing just fine. But I was getting more and more depressed. My memory wasn't working right. My anger started bubbling up. And in 1993, there was the dedication of the Vietnam Women's Memorial. My hutchmate from play koo, Diane Evans, was founder.

And she had asked me to do a lot of stuff, and I said, forget it. I couldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole. I don't know how you can talk about it. She said, well, at least come to the dedication. So I went to the dedication and all of a sudden, there were women there that spoke my language. I didn't have to explain a thing. It was a revelation. I felt safe for the first time.

But then I went home. I was doing fine. I had that big dam held up there. Sure, there was a little crack from the Vietnam Women's Memorial, but I could deal with what was trickling through. And then they asked me to speak at the dedication of the Huey helicopter. And then I heard the Huey helicopter. After my speech, the captain of the Huey came up to me and he said, would you like to look inside? And I said, oh no, I don't even want to get near the helicopter.

He said, oh, that's fine, that's okay. And he took my hand, he tucked it under his arm, and he kept me really close. And as we were walking, he would chat with this person and that person. And pretty soon we were by the door. And pretty soon we were through the door. And pretty soon we were next to the helicopter. And he said to me, would you like to look inside?

And I said, no, thanks. This was a helicopter that had actually carried my boys. And he said, OK. But he kind of positioned me so that, and all of a sudden I could see inside and it looked the same. And then he took my hand and he held it, and it punched a hole through that wall that was Vietnam, and everything came pouring out. And a week later, I went to the VA for help.

That was eating weeks. Edy is now been a nurse for more than 50 years. If you know someone who was wounded in Vietnam or died while hospitalized there, I hope it's a comfort to know that someone like Edie was at his bedside. All of the soldiers I spoke to were quick to commend the medics, nurses, and doctors who served. Edie has served on the board of directors to both the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation and the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. In 1992, Edy's daughter was at Mount Holyoke College taking an American history class, and a professor made the mistake of saying,

you women will never know what it's like to be in war. Edy's daughter asked, uh, can my mom come in and speak to the class? A week later, she introduced her. This is my mother, Edy Meeks. She was an army nurse in Vietnam. I'm so she introduced her. This is my mother, Edie Meeks. She was an army nurse in Vietnam. I'm so proud of her. Edie said it was the first time she had heard anyone say they were proud of her service. Next up, a different perspective on the war and its wake from a Vietnamese man who was a teenage orphan in 1975, when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and presented by the Public Radio Exchange, PRX.org. You're listening to the Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I'm Jennifer Hickson. We're hearing stories about the Vietnam War and Brotherhood. Jason Tru was 14 years old, a Vietnamese orphan, when it became clear that Saigon was about to fall. American soldiers and civilians were being evacuated before the North Vietnamese took cold of the city.

Our allies, the South Vietnamese people, would be in peril. President Ford called it a great humanitarian tragedy, an issued a press release that said the US had directed $2 million of special foreign aid to fly 2,000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States. Here's Jason Tru, live at the mouth. It was only in spring of 1975 that my two younger brothers and I, along with about 50 other orphans waiting on this cargo airplane to go to America.

It was in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, at the end of the Vietnam War. I was 14 at the time old enough to understand that South Vietnam was facing a grim situation. South Vietnam was collapsing rapidly under the advancing force of North Vietnam. advancing force of North Vietnam. I could sense the panic in the urgency. In the airport was buzzing with military airplanes, vehicles, personnel. But for my two brothers and I, the only thing that was on our mind at the time was that we're going to America.

This was a dream coming true for us. Nine years before that, our dad had died fighting in the war. In a year later, our mom died in a traffic accident, so the neighbors bought the three of us to an orphanage. It was while living in the orphanage that I came to the realization that that my brothers and I were not in a normal situation, that we didn't have parents like Brickler Kitt

to provide for us, to support us, to give us our futures. But our futures were unknown, uncertain. As the oldest child of the three, I took over the parental responsibilities following the Vietnamese tradition. So as a seven-year-old parent, I worried a lot. For the seven years that we were living in the orphanage, I constantly worried about how I'm going to take care of my brothers, how we are going to survive in a land that even ordinary people were having a tough time because of the war.

And then we met a woman named Sherry Clark, an American woman who was heading a charity organization called Friends of Children of Vietnam. She was living in Vietnam at the time and was traveling around helping orphanages. And so now she was helping my brothers and I and the other orphans to go to America as part of the operation maybe lived. So now sitting on this airplane waiting, just moments before we take off for America, it was indeed a dream coming true. I was so lost in my own excitement and thought that I didn't notice there was a South Vietnamese police

officer on the board of the airplane until he was right in front of me. The officer looked over and asked me a couple of questions. Then he told me, no, you can't leave the country. You are too old. I was dumbfounded. I could only imagine that he wanted me to do stages in case of Vietnam and masses all of his available resources,

a last ditch to defend the country against the enemy. I was devastated, didn't know what to do. The officer then proceeded to take me in another boy about the same age after plane. I felt like I was being dragged through a deep dark tunnel. I looked over to my brothers, they looked shocked. I could see the fears and confusion in their eyes. And I wanted to say a lot to them. I wanted to tell them to take care of themselves and take care of each other in the new land. But I couldn't say anything.

So I just left the plane silently. I learned later though, the pilot of the airplane, his name was Ed Dele, who was also the president of World Airways at the time, and was spearheading the Operation Baby Left. He tried to bribe the police officer with a $100 bill to let me and the other boy go, but the police officer refused and viped the $100 bill in half. So the plane took off with my brothers and I went back to the shelter. That night was a long night for me in the fall and nights and days. I was trying to come to terms with what just happened.

I was filled with disappointment and hopelessness. But at the same time, I was feeling a sense of relief, knowing that my brothers would be okay, and that I don't have to worry about taking care of them anymore. So now it's just me, myself. I convince myself that I can survive in any situation and I can handle anything that may come to me.

But that conviction only lasted only a couple of days until Sherry Clark, the lady that was helping us, handed me a newspaper from the US. My brothers had left on the first flight of the operation baby lift so it made big news when they landed. And the newspaper hit this photo of my two brothers playing in the snow. As soon as I saw that photo, it hit me like a freight train. I realized then that I just lost out of my family. We lost our parents. After we lost our parents, my brothers were my only family and now I just lost them. In facing with this this thing possibility that

the North Vietnamese Communist would overrun themselves at any time with communications cut after the US. So the idea of being left behind would perhaps never see or hear from my brother again, which too much for me to bear. I was overwhelmed with the desire to leave Vietnam, come to the US, be with my brothers again. So I begged Sherry, I said, Sherry, anything you can do, whatever you can do, help me out.

A few days later, Sherry came to me and said, get into the van, we're going to the airport. There may be a plane that you can, you may be able to get on. So I went. But this time, the trip to the airport was very different at the first, instead of excitement, it was shrouded with fears and anxiety. I knew that I was defined the government's order. I felt like I was on an escape mission. At the airport, they rushed me to onto a military airplane.

They took my seat, tried to lay low, tried to lay low, trying to be invisible, hoping for a quick departure. But as I looked up from my seat, I saw a police officer come in my way. The officer asked me a couple of questions, then told me, no, you cannot leave.

I felt like the sky was falling. But instead of taking me off the airplane like the first officer did, this officer told me to wait there for him and then proceed to talk to the pilot and then went inside the building nearby. So I waited. Time was passing very slowly. Minutes seems like days.

At any time I was expecting to see the officer coming back out with shoulders and dragged me off to some unpleasant place because I have to fight order and try to escape. But after what seems to me like an eternity, I started hearing doors closing and engine roaring. So I was thinking to myself, well, I'm hearing things, my mind must be in overdrive. And then the plane started moving. Question where I stood in my mind, I was wondering what's going on. Is the pilot leaving without permission? Is he going to gun it? I held my breath

Started to pray for the plate to move faster because it was moving way too slow for me And at any time I was expecting that the South government Vietnamese government seen that we were leaving that would send vehicles troops to stop us. But after what seems like another eternity, the plane began to lift off. I felt a huge relief and so I breathed in easier, but still very fearful that any time the Soviet Union would send planes off, send military adjusters intercept us and force us back. It wasn't until we landed the Philippines hours earlier, later that I felt completely safe. I flew to the US the next day, two weeks before South Vietnam was completely overrun by communist North. helped you and I united my brothers and I. She also gave me half of the rip hundred dollar bill that they had given to her to me to keep it as a momentum of an attempt to battle for my life.

When I saw my, when I met up with my brothers again before they rushed in for a big embrace, they were looking at me in this sort of bewilder, I can't believe it looked, that reminded me almost similar to the look that they had on, the look that me on to when we were on that plane. But this time it was not fierce in their eyes, but it was happiness in excitement. And for me, I felt the intensity of great happiness in peace with me, knowing that things are going to be okay, knowing that from now on, I no longer have to worry how my brothers and I are going to survive. Thank you. That was Jason True. Jason and his brothers were reunited in Wisconsin, where they all became very familiar with snow. The numbers aren't exact, but somewhere between 2500 and 3000 children were airlifted by

American operation baby lift. Jason is a software engineer, a painter, a husband, and a father. He's extremely grateful to Sherry and everyone, all the pilots and soldiers and nurses and volunteer shaperones who helped get so many children out of harm's way. To see a picture of Jason and his brothers, visit themoth.org.

I wanted to end by quoting Glenn Baker, the soldier I spoke of at the top of the hour, who said he'd rather not share his personal story on stage. Public speaking isn't for everyone, but I wanted to note Glenn Baker is a very brave man. He received two purple hearts for his service with the first air cavalry division in the central highlands and Cambodian border areas of South Vietnam. Glenn is African-American and said that the racial divide back home made things more difficult in country. He was a squad leader with a predominantly white squad, but they made it work. He wrote,

Even after all these years, I'm still caught up in the Vietnam War. It's still very real for me. And although I want to feel proud for having served my country, I think it's important for all Americans who see themselves reflected in the Vietnam War Memorial Stone. To remember the war, honestly, we owe that to ourselves and to our children. That's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time for the Moth Radio Hour. Your host this hour was Jennifer Hickson. Jennifer also directed the stories in the show along with Sarah Austin Jeness. The rest of the Moths' directorial staff includes Katherine Burns, Sarah Haberman, and Meg

Boles, production support from Timothy Luley. Most stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift, other music in this hour from Benjamin Vertory and Bill Freselle. You can find links to all the music we use at our website. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by me, Jay. Allison, with Vicki Merrick at Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on how to picture your own story and everything else, go to our website, TheMoth.org.