Hey fellow adoptees,

Just got back from Vietnam. Toured the South, Central, and North. I went to see my homeland and visit the orphanage that took me in during the Vietnam war. I thought it would be an avalanche of complicated emotions but in fact it turned out to be relief and elation. I visited the gravesite of the nuns who took care of me. Actually met two women who were young Vietnamese helpers at the time and who took care of me at the orphanage. They told me stories of how I was as a baby and who my friends were. I found out that American and Vietnamese soldiers would often find children clutching to their dead mother and deliver them to the convent. Or they would kill the mother or father and take the child to the convent. There were many children who were abandoned at the hospitals and taken to the orphanages. The nuns tell me that most likely I was dropped off by soldiers. One estimate ( www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm) listed 18,000 orphans in South Vietnam in 1975 and 20% of that number were children of mixed race. Out of the statistics and volumes of material generated about the war, I was happy to finally see Vietnam and Vietnamese people of today. It is a perspective hard to find.

As morbid and horrifying the facts are, it makes me see that good rises and exists even in the most bleak situations. I owe my survival to a lot of people. Making a life of love and success is the least I can do to prove their efforts were not in vain. And I felt right at home. I was born in Da Nang and it is where I will make another life for myself. My goal is to learn Vietnamese, buy property in Da Nang, and bring some business to their poor economy. Three months out of the year my wife and I will be in Vietnam. The southerners are tremendously warm and loving people. And the weather agrees with me (hot and humid). This trip has shown me a great path to follow in life. I see doors opening in front of me and the future looks even brighter than before.