Saturday, December 23, 2017

USS Kirk Rescue April 29, 1975

Via mind jog from Minh Dinh Nguyen


Aguna was also named after the ship that rescued his family and was born on-board.



Evacuation
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  A father goes 'badass' to save his family

 The crew of the USS Kirk frantically wave away Ba Van Nguyen as he approaches the ship with his family.
 Ba Van Nguyen's helicopter smashes into the water after he risks all to save his wife and their three children.

 Kent "Chippy" Chipman reunites with Mina Nguyen, who was just 10 months old when he helped save her life.
"I'm the guy who caught you" (When dropped from the helicopter)

 A 10-month-old Mina Nguyen cries after she is dropped into the arms of a sailor after her father's high-risk escape.
A 10-month-old Mina Nguyen cries after she is dropped into the arms of a sailor after her father's high-risk escape.

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Nguyen shuffled to his feet from his wheelchair, straightened his jacket as he looked at Jacobs, and, with a trembling right hand, he saluted. 

If you'd seen him in the crowded room that night, you might not have given him a second look.

He was the frail old man in a wheelchair. He wore a black ascot cap, a burgundy tie and a gray tweed jacket that covered his 140-pound frame. Ba Van Nguyen couldn't speak, could barely move; just a tiny man in a roomful of big Navy men swapping war stories.

But rewind the clock 40 years, slap a pistol in Nguyen's shoulder holster, add about 10 pounds of wiry muscle, and strap him into the seat of a military helicopter armed with an M60 machine gun and he becomes something else:

A total badass.

On April 29, 1975, Nguyen did something that could have been ripped from the script of a "Mission Impossible" movie. He was fleeing from the North Vietnamese army with his wife and their three young children as communist soldiers crashed the gates of Saigon. For 20 excruciating minutes, Nguyen's copter literally hovered between life and death.

More @ CNN

6 comments:

  1. We as a Nation sold our souls to the Devil himself in our cowardly betrayal of South Vietnam.

    Every Vietnamese I have ever met from the old country, old or young when they left, all have a haunted look in their eyes.

    My wife learned to sing a Viet song, about a young girl on a bridge. When she sings it, to this day the old Viets break down in tears for their loss. And then they thank her that she (a white woman, obviously culturally appropriating) is helping keep their traditions alive.

    God, we have so much to make up for these people.

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    1. Maybe killing all the liberals would suffice....:) Do you have a recording?

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    2. I wish. She just lost her voice due to too many hospital visits lately thrashing her voice. Hope she gets it back because that song is so sad. So very Vietnamese.

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  2. Awesome story!
    They must have gone through some trials starting over literally with the clothes on their back.

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    1. Many refugees arrived in the same position. He had been prepared and took gold bars but lost them in the ocean. Too bad he didn't drop them on deck, but what he did was extraordinary. Most all Vietnamese keep their money in gold at home.

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