After the Vietnam War: When the Children Return
- Devaki Murch
- May 1
- 9 min read
May 5, 2025
Having been taken away from Vietnam at a very young age, the war, family and the country of Vietnam were never in their memories. Many years later, the children of that year returned to find their families, to find the pieces of their lives.
"When they start their journey to find their families, many people have a specific template of what will happen. But things don't always go according to plan, and you can't have too many expectations, because their parents may have passed away," Ms. Trista Goldberg shared with BBC News Vietnamese as Vietnam marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.
Goldberg, then a four-year-old, was evacuated from Vietnam in late 1974 amid predictions that Saigon would soon fall.
By early April 1975, when the end was near, Operation Babylift, or the Vietnam Children's Airlift Campaign, was launched, helping to evacuate thousands of children from South Vietnam abroad, to countries such as the US, France, Australia, Canada...
Ms. Goldberg is currently the president of Operation Reunite, a nonprofit organization that helps Vietnamese adoptees, including the children of Operation Babylift, find their birth parents.
Ms. Goldberg said that over the years, many children who were evacuated in the past have returned to Vietnam to find their biological parents.
Operation Babylift has also been criticized because not all of the children in the program were orphans.
"There are children who are taken from orphanages but their parents are actually just sending them to day care. And when they come back, their children are taken away."
The program began with a disaster. It was on April 4, 1975, when a C-5A Galaxy military aircraft carrying 313 people crashed into a field near the Saigon River, killing 138 people, including 78 children.
An altar was later set up at the site of the plane crash.
"The altar is quite large, probably about 1m x 2m. The area used to be a rice field, but now there are many constructions. It is located on private land and the landowner has agreed to allow renovation. We want to engrave the names of all the victims on it and so we have to replace it with a larger altar."
She said the landowner's daughter was the one who looked after and cleaned the altar.
The evacuation of children from Vietnam had been underway for months before Operation Babylift was launched, as was the case with Ms. Goldberg.
Brent Richard Kurkoski and Steve Geogre were two such passengers.
Mr. Brent Richard Kurkoski is 52 years old and has been living in Ho Chi Minh City for more than 20 years, while Mr. Steve Geogre, 51 years old, is living in Hawaii, USA.
Brent left Vietnam in October 1974, when he was about one year old and had the Vietnamese name Tran Duc Thien.
Steve left Vietnam a little earlier, in August 1974, when he was just seven months old. He returned to Vietnam for the first time in 2001.
"The first time I met another Vietnamese adoptee was when I was 26 years old," Brent said. That seemingly chance encounter in 1999 set his life on a new course when he and a few friends decided to move to Vietnam.
“At the end of that trip, I met the woman who took care of me at the orphanage. She accidentally burned my stomach when I was a baby,” Steve shared, adding that it was that burn that made her recognize him.
Leaving at such a young age that they have no memories of Vietnam. However, the children of that time seemed to have left behind some pieces of themselves in this land. And that is also what urged them to return to Vietnam.
Culture shock
After decades of separation, growing up in a completely different environment, is the connection with relatives and the place where you were born and raised still there?
"I think it takes time to build love and trust, but I'm going to open up. I'm going to give them a lot of space. But that doesn't mean if they do bad things I won't want to keep my distance."
“I don't know either,” Steve shared.
Even if you find your birth parents, "it doesn't just become a family. It has to happen gradually," Brent said.
"When I was one, I had no memories, and when I was two, it was the same. No one remembers that time. I don't remember anything either. But I have my ID and a picture of me at that time."
When he arrived in the United States, Brent was adopted by an American family and lived in a suburb. He said he was surrounded by only white people, with no one as yellow as him, except for a Korean kid he went to school with when he was 8 years old. Although he was able to integrate into the community, Brent shared that it was very stressful.
"I had to force myself to fit in, but I never felt like I fully belonged to that community."
As children born in Vietnam, but leaving at a young age, growing up in a completely different environment - from language, food, education, communication - when they returned they suffered culture shock.
"When biological families reunite with their children, they often think that these children are still Vietnamese, with the same way of thinking and understanding of culture and customs as Vietnamese people. But in fact, we grew up in other cultures and customs. It's not that we can't absorb Vietnamese culture, of course we can, but our starting point is different," Ms. Goldberg explained.
Steve, who grew up in Wyoming in a predominantly white community, didn't really get interested in Vietnam until he was in his late 20s.
"There was so much to worry about, getting settled in, going to college, getting a job. My parents always had books about the Vietnam War at home, and they had a book about Operation Babylift. Things I could look at."
"This is a strange reality. I am Vietnamese but know nothing about Vietnam. I had a Vietnamese friend when I was young, but she was also adopted. I still hope to attend a Vietnamese wedding one day."
After a long career working with adopted children looking for their parents, Goldberg found that reunification is not easy.
"It is impossible to expect a child who was taken away from Vietnam [for such a long time] to immediately be able to integrate into a Vietnamese family in Vietnam."
"Because we also have our own lives, we have our own children, we can't change all of a sudden. But at the same time, there are also people who have a very significant connection."
According to Ms. Goldberg, Vietnamese people are sometimes too straightforward, asking questions that would be considered sensitive in other cultures, such as weight and salary.
"When people ask that, they feel scared. Like, 'Why do they want to know that? What do they want from me?' But really, the questioner is just interested in how you've grown, how you've handled life."
Deep fear
It was only after meeting other Vietnamese adoptees in 1999 that Mr. Brent began to think about Vietnam.
"It turns out we are very similar – from personality, experience to way of thinking. No one has ever been to Vietnam, so the whole group made an appointment to go to Ho Chi Minh City for a trip."
The trip was not made until 2001. Once in Vietnam, thinking he would probably never return, he decided to find his birth mother – to thank her for giving birth to him during the war instead of choosing abortion.
Following the papers, he went to Rach Gia, hired a driver, an interpreter, and posted a notice in the newspaper looking for his mother. A woman came and claimed to be his mother. He tried to collect information to verify, but could not be sure.
Before leaving Vietnam, he gave her 4 million dong – all his remaining cash – and promised to send her more after returning to the US. She seemed upset, saying that the amount was too little, but accepted it anyway.
Back in America, he told this story to a Vietnamese family. They said:
"That's not your mother. No Vietnamese mother would ask her son for money the first time they met after 26 years. She's a liar. Forget her."
Then, due to a round of layoffs, Mr. Brent lost his job and decided to return to Vietnam in 2001. He has lived in Vietnam ever since. In an interview with the BBC , he repeatedly called Vietnam "home."
Sometimes deep-seated fear interrupts the search for biological parents.
"One of the biggest fears of abandoned adoptees is thinking that their parents don't want them. That's why it took me so long to start looking for my birth parents — because I thought they didn't want me. And that was heartbreaking.
“But at the same time, it took me a while to understand and accept the fact that this was wartime, not normal circumstances. People were forced to sacrifice for the lives of their children.
"On that journey, fear alone is enough to drive people crazy. Fear of not knowing what awaits you ahead, where your family is and whether they will accept you or not.
"Even if the biological mother has passed away, there is still a chance to reunite with the siblings. It's a bit awkward, but at least there is an ending."
Finding the missing piece
Everyone has their reasons for coming back.
"I was in my 30s, getting married and having children. That probably sparked my interest in my roots. Even though I had a very loving and caring foster family in America, and my foster family in Vietnam had also moved to America, I still felt like something was missing, a very important part of me. So if I didn't try to find it, it would be like denying a part of myself," Goldberg recalled.
She said her foster family was worried that she was looking for a "better family".
“It’s not like that. I had to explain to them, ‘No, it’s not like that. I’m just looking for a missing piece in the puzzle of my life. You’re always going to be a part of it.’ I think they understood and were less insecure.”
After searching, Ms. Goldberg learned that her mother and younger brother had also moved to the United States, thanks to the Amerasian Homecoming Act.
"I was living in California at the time, and my mom and sister were living in Hawaii. They flew to California and we met at the airport. It was really emotional. It was like an airport scene in a movie, everyone was crying."
Now, every few years, Ms. Goldberg returns to Vietnam to listen to the Vietnamese language, experience the flavors of the cuisine, "live among the sound of motorbikes and explore different regions."
Unlike Ms. Goldberg, Mr. Steve wanted to return to Vietnam not for one specific reason.
“A little bit of everything, but probably mostly because I was finally emotionally ready to return to Vietnam. I think I had been holding back a lot, because deep down inside, I was carrying unhealed wounds – in ways that I wasn’t really aware of and willing to face.
"And as I grew older, I thought I was finally ready to face those pains and emotions and return to Vietnam with an open mind," Steve shared.
"Oh my gosh, this is the place I was born," he exclaimed when he first returned to Vietnam.
"I stood for an hour just watching people cross the street.
"I was in District 1, which was extremely crowded, and I really couldn't believe what I saw. It was my first time in Vietnam, seeing people who looked like me. I kept thinking, 'Maybe one of these people is my brother, maybe one of them is my father, my mother'."
Of the three people interviewed by the BBC , only Ms Goldberg has found her mother.
Mr. Brent is married and has children in Vietnam.
"My children helped me heal the family void in me, the loss of my biological mother. They filled in the missing pieces in my life," he confided, adding that he no longer actively searched for his biological parents.
"Vietnam is where I belong. This is where I will live for the rest of my life. Coming back here means I have completed my journey," he added.
Meanwhile, Mr. Steve thinks that he doesn't have much time left.
"I'm 51 years old now. If my biological parents were still alive, they would be in their 70s, 80s, 90s. I'm still holding out hope, but at the same time I'm ready to accept that I won't find them. Still, I'll keep trying."
Steve lives in Hawaii and is working on the AdoptiveThreads project to raise funds to support adopted children who have not yet found their birth parents. He recently found a distant relative who provided additional clues to finding his birth parents.
"If I could, I would tell them [the biological parents] 'Everything is fine. I'm fine. Everything in the past, and the reason why I was put up for adoption, doesn't matter anymore. I'm fine'."
Comments