Shortly before the fall of Saigon in 1975, roughly 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam in an effort dubbed Operation Babylift. The children went on to be adopted by families in the U.S., Australia and other countries. An initiative of the Ford administration, the operation was billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans – many of them fathered by American servicemen – from advancing communist forces. However, the program has also faced criticism for removing children from their homeland and potentially separating them from living relatives.
Thuy Williams and Jodi Willis were both airlifted out of Vietnam as children and adopted by families in Oregon. They join us to talk about the legacy of Operation Babylift 50 years later.
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