Carried Away

“A War, a Mission, and One Man’s Unexpected Role in Both”

It’s been 50 years since Operation Babylift began—a final act of compassion in a war defined by loss. In its final weeks, volunteers, soldiers, and aid workers scrambled to evacuate thousands of Vietnamese orphans before the fall of Saigon. Among them was a young man named Ross Meador.

In Carried Away: A Memoir of Rescue and Survival Among the Orphans of the Viet Nam War, Ross recounts how he came to Vietnam on a mission to serve—and ended up on tarmacs, inside orphanages, and beside frightened children being rushed to planes bound for safety. He had no formal position—just trust, relationships, and an unwavering sense of responsibility.

This memoir is not only a testament to the power of purpose, but a rare account of a rescue that few saw up close.

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AUTHOR:

         " I grew up during the Viet Nam war years, and was profoundly aware of the horrible tragedy being inflicted upon the Vietnamese people. The plight of the war orphans was especially compelling and I felt driven to help.

          I learned of a group called Friends of Children of Vietnam that was dedicated to helping the orphans.  I was 19 years old and had no money or resources. I hitchhiked from my home in San Diego to the organization’s office in Denver.  There I learned that the group had no office in Vietnam, but wanted to start one. All they had, however, was $500 and a one-way ticket to Saigon.  My dream was coming true.

          I arrived in Vietnam in early 1974.  What I lacked in experience, I made up for in passion and enthusiasm. I visited orphanages whenever I could and wherever they may be located.  The conditions I found were deplorable – filth, disease, starvation.  I took pictures and wrote stories about what I found, and stirred the hearts of some generous Americans.  A few donations trickled in, enough to rent a house big enough to take in some of the orphans from the overcrowded orphanages.  Our international adoption program was born.

          Soon after renting our first house, I was joined by Cherie Clark and her family.  Cherie was a nurse with a deep commitment to helping the Vietnamese people. She immediately took charge and we began to expand.  Within a few months, we had over 100 children in our care and we completed the first of our international adoptions.  I was lucky enough to escort many of the children on flights back to the US and to say to anxious parents in the airport lounge, “Here’s your son!”

          By the end of 1974, our operation was in full swing.  We opened several more childcare facilities and regularly sent adoptees on the twice-weekly Pan Am flights to Honolulu and beyond.  Little did we know that the end was very near.

          In December 1974, the US Congress cut off military aid to South Vietnam.  Nevertheless, conventional wisdom was that the country could hang on for at least another year.  By February, however, the North Vietnamese succeeded in taking control of large areas of the South, and we began to realize that the inevitable was upon us.  At that point we had hundreds of children in our physical and legal custody.  Giving them back to the orphanages or abandoning them to fend for themselves was never an option.  If we had to leave, our kids were coming too.  That was the birth of Operation Babylift.

          The INS agreed to waive visa requirements for the children, but we were on our own for transport.  We spoke with every airline and cargo carrier in the country to try to arrange a flight.  Eventually we found Ed Daly of World Airways who agreed to take our kids.  The first flight was on April 2, 1975, carrying 57 of our older kids.  I knew all the kids well and placed them on the plane myself.  In spite of government efforts to block the flight, including cutting off the runway lights at the moment of takeoff, the children arrived safely in the US.

          By April 3, the world press was buzzing about Friends of Children of Vietnam and the World Airways flight.  Pressure mounted in Washington.  President Ford then stepped up and agreed to fund flights for the remaining children.

          The first government-funded flight ended in disaster. As the plane reached altitude, the rear doors blew off. The plane crashed in a rice field, killing about half of the children aboard.  I was at the airport when it happened and saw the smoke rise from the sky.

          The military flights resumed a couple of days later on smaller cargo planes, with the babies placed in cardboard boxes on the floor.  I joined one of the flights, which landed first at a US airbase in the Philippines and then continued on to San Francisco the next day in traditional passenger aircraft. I stayed just a day in California before flying back to Saigon to continue helping with the evacuation.

          Back in Vietnam, chaos reigned.  The nuns who ran the jungle orphanages panicked.  Many loaded all of their children on a bus and brought them to us. We closed our countryside facility after the World Airways flight, so literally hundreds of children were squeezed into our Saigon facility.  The evacuation flights continued until April 26, when the last of our children were flown out, together with the last of our American staff.

          I stayed behind to continue to help.  Two days later, April 28, the airport was bombed and closed to fixed-wing flights.  The next morning, our house was attacked as the army from the North took over the city.  I fled to the Embassy and stayed there until the early morning of April 30, when I was one of the last American civilians to be lifted from the roof of the Embassy and flown to a waiting aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.

          My perspective on the work we did has changed as I have watched the children grow into adults.  At the time of their adoption, many of the adults involved act as if the children’s lives begin the day they get off the plane in the US. Most of the adoptees, however, retain a powerful connection to Vietnam and to their birth families, whether or not they ever get to meet them.  This realization complicates the story.  It is not only about the joy of finding a new family; it is also about the sadness of losing one.  I have no regrets; the orphanages were terrible places for a child to grow up and the adopting families were generally wonderful.  But it is hard to be orphaned, and for many of the kids, being adopted doesn’t completely eliminate the longing for their first mother."