 Southern California, in its early history, saw a search for gold, for land, and for the souls of men. In our nation's 200th year of freedom, we brought 140,000 strangers to our shores who sought to share in freedoms we consider universal. At Camp Pendleton, the ritual of Christian baptism gives testimony to the pregnant hope of a new life. We are seeing a great human tragedy as untold numbers of Vietnamese flea and North Vietnamese onslaught. The United States has been doing and will continue to do its utmost to assist these people. I have directed that all available naval ships to stand off into China to do whatever is necessary to assist. We have appealed to the United Nations to use its moral influence to permit these innocent people to leave, and we call on North Vietnam to permit the movement of refugees to the area of their choice. I have directed that money from a $2 million special foreign aid children's fund be made available to fly 2000 South Vietnamese orphans to the United States as soon as possible. I have directed that C-5A aircraft and other aircraft especially equipped to care for these orphans during the flight be sent to Saigon. I expect these flights to begin within the next 36 to 48 hours. These orphans will be flown to Travis Air Force Base in California and other bases on the west coast and cared for in those locations. No sooner had the Air Force's military airlift command responded to President Ford's directive. When tragedy struck, the first C-5 to leave Saigon with orphans was involved in a fatal crash. While 314 souls were aboard, more than half escaped. And along with the surviving flight crew were at Thompsonwood Airport the next day for airlift to the States. As the President said, this tragic event will not deter our resolve to aid the babies in this critical hour. The aircraft commander told us that we're going to be picking up babies and we're going to take some stuff into Saigon. And when I really got the idea of what things we're really going to be like is when water bottles, milk cases and the campers and everything start coming. And being a grandfather I'm definitely associated with those things. So when they come I knew exactly what to expect. Being a traveling man I'm often away from home quite a bit. But at least one thing I know for sure is that when I return off my trip my family is going to be waiting for me. But I didn't see the same type of look in the eyes of these people that we were bringing because it had been taken from the bare roots to a completely new environment. We had information to get the passengers and baby on board and depart as soon as possible. After we got airborne the people seemed to sell down somewhat. They realized they were off the ground and actually in the air and heading for a new destination. And everything seemed to be pretty calm except for the babies. We had to get them out and check them over and make sure, you know, run the checklist more or less. So let me see if they need a little diaper change or if they were just afraid. Prior to landing at Clark I remember it was a copilot and navigator to ask for the number of souls on board. It was completely taken out of the old aspect of just hauling cargo or hauling whatever Mac has to haul. When you mention the souls it really brought to the idea of it being that small, old, no matter what, that you are actual people. Once we landed and I saw the volunteer help things were really under control because they seemed to have things really set up for them. The big thing was getting the people out and we had absolutely no trouble doing it. The word went out over the radio. We got thousands of phone calls. I think within the first hour we had almost 3,000 people that had volunteered. I was involved with first arrivals. There was so much sadness, joy, tears, laughter, a mixture of emotions I think. Most of us wanted to help. I think everybody felt the same way. They wanted to help. They wanted to do something, anything that would help these people. Of course with the children it was, I don't know, some were crying and you comforted them the best way you could. You asked if they were hungry. Some of them needed changes in clothes. Of course everybody got changed, but some needed it right away. They had gotten dirty on the way over. And you stayed with this child for your duration, say your 8 hours. If you worked the 8 hours and then you changed ship. Any infants, you took an infant, you went to a mattress and you set it down and you changed it and you waited for medical help. The doctors came around and checked each child individually. And if your child had something wrong with it or needed medical attention, you took it back to the emergency room. We're seeing mostly a lot of gastroenteritis, diarrhea, a little dehydration in the kids, but nothing very severe. Now she was seen a couple of days ago and she's on some medicine already, some active bed. And I think mostly what we're going to have to do here is you're going to have to feed her just clear liquids. Like sugar water, a soda pot, and we don't want her to have any solid foods. Her lungs are clear, she has no pneumonia, she just has a virus. And she'll get better very shortly. I'm going to give you a little bit of medicine to help stop the diarrhea. After the first flight in response to the president's directive, the people at Clark reacted just as they had done almost two years before when our prisoners of war were airlifted home. The same concern, involvement, personal sacrifice was in evidence. At every station in the airlift chain, wives, off-duty military and civilian workers, high school youngsters and their teachers all exhibited a similar disposition to help. When the C-141's landed in the United States, the adoption process for the orphans began immediately. These 2000 Vietnamese orphans are all in the process of being adopted by American families. This is the least we can do, and we will do much, much more. Yes, we in the Air Force would do much more. In Saigon, the tensions had reached a fever pitch. Families of American government and contract workers, and the workers themselves, those with official credentials, passports and the like, were processed and sent on their way to Tanzanute Airport. This was to be the second wave in the increasing tempo of evacuation in the face of a rapidly deteriorating situation. I fly for the 63rd Military Airlift Wing, Norton Air Force Base. During Operation New Life, I made three shuttles into Saigon. I know crew members who have flown as many as seven. When we came into Saigon, they held us up, like I say, to about 15,000 feet, got us right over the field and then said, cleared for approach, and you had to spiral all the way down. You're hoping everybody's spiraling in the same direction. Once you were clear for the approach, you were strictly on your own. You know, you said to really keep your eyes out of the cockpit and watch out for the airplanes because I'd say every 15 seconds there was an airplane touching down the ground. It was just incredible. I've been in the Air Force for 18 and a half years, and we're 14 of that as a load master. All just about everything we could haul on these airplanes. General cargo, nuclear cargo, rolling stock, paratroopers. You name it, Operation New Life was something different. I talked to one of the American civilians that was aboard the aircraft. He said that a lot of them were lieutenants and they wanted to move them out of there so that their husbands right there at the end wouldn't feel their families were threatened or anything like that. They stayed pretty close together. They were, you could tell, their grandmother and grandfather and an aunt and uncle probably and then the younger children and everything like that. There were definitely family groups aboard the aircraft. And they didn't have too much of a way of possession, just pretty much what they had on their back and what they could carry on their hand. And they had their lunches when they came aboard the aircraft. So we didn't have to feed them. Just try to keep an eye on them and do anything you could for them. That's about all you could do. Because the people at Clark could anticipate what was to come, preparations were soon in high gear. This was obviously to be a big operation. While airlift would provide the mobility, these people would provide the other essential ingredients in making the operation a success. Every time we landed at Clark, they had a special parking area that you'd go in there because the ramps were to be saturated with 141s and C5s. And we pulled up in front of this hangar and I don't know if it was officers' wives, enlisted wives, or just volunteers, but there was always a large group of ladies there that would come out to the airplane and meet the people. And it was really kind of surprising that all the help, all these people, ladies and things that donated all their time was really a nice, it speaks highly of their first personnel meeting then, I think. It became apparent to us that Clark itself couldn't be the narrow end of the funnel for the entire operation and the logical conclusion to that is, yes, Subic Bay is going to have to come into play. I'm Captain Rowe, commanding officer of the naval station here at Subic Bay, and as such was charged with the duties of refugee director during Operation New Life here. We principally had responsibility for caring for the refugees on Grandi Island at the refugee camp and moving to and from and then over to the airhead at QB Point Naval Air Station where they rejoined the airlift. Our initial effort there during that period was to accommodate, we hoped, up to about 5,000 refugees on Grandi Island. During that period, we built three tents which would hold about 1,000 people each and cover them with large rubber membrane. And they may turn out to be very suitable. For the first five days, the refugees that we got were airlift refugees out of Saigon. Saigon had not, in fact, fallen. And they, by and large, had American sponsors. An American military or civilian in Saigon would come out, usually with a Vietnamese wife and members of her family, etc. This was my first tour as an air terminal officer. And I only been at NSQB Point a few weeks before the refugee airlift operation started. I might say at this point that this refugee operation was a real crash course in air terminal management. And I might even say it was a type of a graduate course. And all of us were pretty well motivated to assist the refugees anyway we could to get them back to the States. So the men and their wives were very much involved personally with the refugees as well as we were collectively interested in their movement for their very short stay at the terminal, which amounted sometimes to only 30 minutes. The ground time was as short as possible. In many cases, even the engines were kept running on the 141s to expedite the movement. We went round the clock. We took those refugees 24 hours a day. At about that point, the 7th Fleet ships were off the coast of Saigon, off the coast of Vietnam, taking in large numbers of refugees, as you all know, in tens of thousands. And they were coming off the coast in fishing boats and would come out as far as 90 miles at sea in an open barge. And the 7th Fleet ships there simply took them out of the sea and stacked them aboard. We had the MSTS vessels, they were consolidating the refugees. And when they got full, they would come to Subic Bay. So at that point we started then bringing in refugees in very large numbers, processing them here and moving them forward as quickly as we could. The night that we really got involved in the operation was the night President Tu was on. And that was the night that they started a concentrated effort of C-141 and 131s into Saigon. I think it's important to bring this point up. We had known for some time the 141s were going in to Saigon on these missions. We had one or two missions going in there ourselves during that week or two of the 141s going in. We did not hear of any hostilities as the airlift got going and we realized the number of people to be airlifted out and the fact that we might not have as much time as we first thought we would have. They stopped rigging seats in the C-130s as well as in the 141s. We strictly palletized the floor making it bare and we were able to accommodate over 200 people in every mission. And I carried out over 260 people. The last C-130 to haul passengers out of there in the field was very badly damaged during the attack and we were unable to continue the airlift. When the floor of refugees began to increase so did the myriad of stories and events that would play out on the floor of the processing hangar. Stories that only the participants can know in full detail. The joy of loved ones thought lost and suddenly found is perhaps the most moving of experiences. The island of Guam, an American territory, tropical, idyllic. The initial impact of refugees would be felt here at Aganya. I can't believe it right now. NAS Guam VP hangar. Just a big barn now. And just a few months ago with almost no notice they started processing. They set up a terminal here that could process thousands of people coming off planes, through customs, paperwork, on the buses with a minimum aggravation. And everybody seemed to respect themselves and enjoyed doing the work. I would say under the conditions people come in dirty, grimy off planes that have traveled hours been packed in. And yet I have not seen as what I would consider as good a service on a one-to-one level in any major airport I've traveled through in the military. It looked like utter confusion, but if you walked around you saw just a lot of individuals from the Navy from the military that just sort of found their job. They were ready to work. They had a positive attitude and just somehow it got done. What you see here is the last CB to work at a roadie point for Operation New Life. I'm standing on the intersection of an old runway which was built by the Japanese or the Americans in World War II. I don't know which. All around were tents to house thousands of Vietnamese refugees. And then we started seeing all the CBs working day and night clearing the land, putting up tents, and we could see it was going to be possible. And we didn't know if we were going to keep up with the people coming in or not. First they went up very, very slow. We might have put up one tent in 30 minutes, let's say. And then later on, I'd say they put up a tent every 10 minutes. There was approximately 2,980 tents and there was approximately 50,000 people here. At Subic Bay, the refugees picked up at sea were impacting the whole process. It was not merely hundreds at a time now, but literally thousands. Usually, the big merchants would come in with about 6,000 people. Our Provost Marshall would go out and sort out who wanted to come in and who wanted to stay. But the effort was for us to take the ship down to about 3,000 which would make it more comfortable, and the ship then would take the remaining 3,000 and continue on to Guam. During the heaviest period, we were also manifesting and moving out on aircraft of 6,000 people a day. If we brought in about 10, we'd then put about four into the camp. During that period, we'd use the camp as kind of a surge tank. If we were taking them on to the island faster than we could put them on the aircraft, they'd move them into the camp. There was no differentiation who they were or what they were. It was just aircraft availability and the line went into the camp or went into the manifesting line just depending on the availability of aircraft at that moment. That was one plane every 30 minutes, steady around the clock except that between 4.30 and 6 they had a break in the flight schedule. Otherwise, we either loaded a C-130 or a 141 every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. And that comes out to 6,000 people a day. The flights to Guam, direct from Saigon, from Cubie Point, from Clark, were hardly first class. If you haven't flown at about 30,000 feet, for sub-zero temperatures outside, make the metal airplane floor almost ice cold. You can't appreciate your deal of the four to five hour flight to Anderson Air Force Base, the busiest of new life bases. The passenger service representative's responsibility is to meet incoming and outbound aircraft. What we will do is we will meet the aircraft, analyze how many passengers are on board, brief the passengers and bring them to the terminal. During the arrival of an aircraft, we were split up into teams, baggage teams, fleet service teams, ramp personnel and the passenger service people. We would follow the aircraft down the taxiway in a small train-like situation. After block-in, the action seemed to break loose on the aircraft. Everyone knew what he had to do and did it with perfection. That's the only way that it would work correct. There were many TDY personnel from the support squadrons at Clark, Kadena, Yakota, Hawaii. Coordination between the people was very good because passenger processing is a standardized career field and anyone working in the career field should be able to adapt very quickly. With Guam facilities filling up, a new surge tank was needed and Wake Island would be it. The base commander at Hickam was the director of refugee activities at Wake. You know, Wake Island is a very small island about 2,000 miles due west of Honolulu. During this operation of new life, it became very apparent to all of us there that we were entirely dependent upon earlier to provide us the supplies in order to provide the necessary environment and living conditions for the refugees at Wake Island. It's been primarily an emergency-type base only. It's a very small complement. It had been an existing weight consisting of only about five blue suitors and about 200 contractor personnel. They came in and won 41s at about 180 per aircraft. It was quite an experience to see them walk off of an airplane and I tried to put myself in their place. Suppose all of a sudden that I had been lifted out of my country and I got off of an airplane on a foreign land and all I had was what was on my back or all my possessions were in a pillowcase. Sure as such. From a food stand point, Wake Island was unique. In fact, I haven't experienced anything like it in my 23 years in service. We had 38 Air Force personnel that came from various bases over Packhouse and some from the mainland. They were experienced cooks and they really enjoyed cooking for the Vietnamese. At first, we experienced some difficulty with long lines especially when the Vietnamese would decide that one dining hall was preparing better food than the other. To correct this problem, we tried the color-coded meal cards and just resolved that problem. Plus we improved the food in the other dining hall so they'd all be standardized. They told me that we had all the food items that they liked and that they eat and did not. But the way we prepared it wasn't exactly to their liking. About a half a day after they're being there it was really noticeable of how the smiles began to break out. It was just the transformation from the day before to the next day was really unbelievable. And I noticed on many occasions of going around the base and the dining halls down into the beach area that you would see young couples rolling along the beach hand in hand and beginning to really become themselves again. Now the final chapter of this modern epic. Military airlift was responsive to the emergencies. Under contract to the military airlift command American commercial carriers would move 80% of the refugees to resettlement centers on the mainland to begin their new life. From the Philippines, from Guam, from Wake the airliners would move through Honolulu and eventually to Camp Pendleton, Fort Chafee, Eglin Air Force Base and Indian Town Gap in Pennsylvania. I've been flying out of Honolulu for almost three years and when Pan Am Scheduling called me one morning to work a refugee flight I really didn't know what to expect. That depends on where you're coming home to, you know, where your head's at. You know, I think if you're into people and you love people I just felt that they have just as much right to be in the United States and breathe air as I do. And that was my impression. When they were just smiling and the happiest, I mean, they just perked up just completely when we landed. They're just so excited to finally be at their destination and be starting a new life. The flights kept coming. The refugees were somehow moved on rather quickly in those days from wherever they were, the Philippines, Wake, Guam, or whatever, and came to us in remarkably short order, I thought. As the Social Security and the HEW coordinator at Camp Pendleton from the very first day I was able to watch this impressive, huge migration of people. It's been described as one of the largest in the shortest time in American history. We as a country accepted the responsibility. The citizens came forth after the military had gotten into the relocation system. I'm pleased and personally proud that we've made the effort. The people that made it over had made it over to this side under great odds. They had to have something inside that would get them out and fight their way as they had to to come over here. They gave up fortunes. Some of them were very rich, but a lot of them gave up every dime they had to get on an airplane, to buy their way on a ship, to do whatever they had to do. So they are people that I consider to be future assets to this country. I know that there's going to be many, many future problems and these people becoming a part of our society because they come from a very different society than their own. But I think they'll do it. They're strong people. This is the Van Pham family. Tang is the father and Nung is the mother and here are our three children. The oldest is Nung and the second child is V and the youngest is Dong. These children are adjusting very rapidly because two of them are in school and they are having an opportunity to play daily with American children and they're really becoming adjusted to our situation and our culture very rapidly. On their way here they had a purse with jewels in them which was all that they could take of material possessions but in transferring from their boat, why that was lost overboard. So they really have nothing. The grandmother did bring with her one of her prize possessions which is a black velvet dress. This dress she wears to mask and she wears her gold cross with that and it has a black velvet hat that is a part of that outfit. We've enjoyed having them live right in the home with us and this has been a wonderful experience sharing the culture and the different ways of Vietnam and the United States. And so for these, a new adventure to capture for themselves the torch of liberty to hold it high, lighting the way to freedom.