Thank you for having been looking after me, your Linh "baby san."
Thirty-five years ago, on the very last fleeting days before you were ordered by President Gerald Ford from the White House to leave Saigon, you had saved thousands of lives, a repeat of the Schindler's List. I was among them.
My journey to America by means of the wings of an angel named C-130 took 20 hours, destination was tent-city, Camp Pendleton.
Thirty-five years later, I took another journey, 87 hours round-trips, on the Greyhound bus not far from
the Marines Camp, Pendleton, to your hometown San Antonio, home of the Alamo. Your fatherly love
and spirit has stayed with me to the very last minute, making sure your adopted son getting to your funeral service just fine, and fine it was, the cab stopped at the door of
Fort Sam Houston's Dodd Field Chapel precisely 3 minutes before the service began. Your beloved daughter Karen
E.K. was still standing there for me. I was breathless, feeling the goose
bumps, being present to your
sacred presence...
Dear Daddy, on that fateful day of April 1975 you blessed me with the journey to a heaven on Earth, the U.S.A. Today, March 17, I made a
second journey to see you off to the Heaven of love in the kingdom of God...
Linh Duy Vo
17 March 2011, right after the very moving Funeral of Papa MG Homer Duggins
Smith, on the Greyhound bus going back to California.
date: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 3:14 PM
subject: Fwd: Two Clips of Rory's Grandfather's (My Father) Funeral with Rory in them.
mailed-bygmail.com
signed-bygmail.com
Linh, here is the Fox clip as well.
Video credit: KSAT-TV SAN ANTONIO
"Last Man to Leave Saigon" Laid to Rest
-- Miriam Zamorano
Major General Homer D. Smith was best known as "The Last
Man to Leave Saigon" when he left Vietnam in 1975. Today, he was laid to
rest at
Sam
Houston
National
Cemetery
.
After 36 years in the Army, General Smith held countless medals. But he is
best known for heading two missions that saved thousands of lives in
Vietnam
: "Operation Baby Lift" and "Operation Frequent Wind."
"Operation Baby Lift" air-lifted more than 2,000 infants from
South Vietnam
. And in April of 1975, during the final days before the fall of
Saigon
, the General evacuated more than 7,000 Americans and Vietnamese in
"Operation Frequent Wind."
General Smith died from complications from pneumonia. He was 89 years old, and
a true American hero.
Posted by: Jim Bob Breazeale"Last
Man to Leave Saigon" Laid to Rest -- Miriam Zamorano
Fiday, March 18 2011, 06:27 PM CDT
MS. E.K. Smith
Poet's note: Papa San MG James Piner was
deputy to Papa Homer in Saigon.
A
Fateful Lottery Ticket
(In
memory of Major General Homer D. Smith,
16
February 1922 – 6 March 2011)
Three
decades and seven years have passed
Since
the last helicopter left that roof
The
last man left at the eleventh hour: Homer Duggins Smith
Video credit: KSAT-TV SAN ANTONIO
