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The Life We Were Given
Dana Sachs
Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam
Beacon Press
April 2010
On Sale: April 1, 2010
288 pages
ISBN: 0807042412
EAN: 9780807042410
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In April 1975, just before the fall of Saigon, the U.S.
government launched "Operation Babylift," a highly
publicized plan to evacuate nearly three thousand displaced
Vietnamese children and place them with adoptive families
overseas. Chaotic from start to finish, the mission gripped
the world—with a traumatic plane crash, international media
snapping pictures of bewildered children traveling to their
new homes, and families clamoring to adopt the waifs.
Often presented as a great humanitarian effort, Operation
Babylift provided an opportunity for national catharsis
following the trauma of the American experience in Vietnam.
Now, thirty-five years after the war ended, Dana Sachs
examines this unprecedented event more carefully, revealing
how a single public-policy gesture irrevocably altered
thousands of lives, not always for the better. Though most
of the children were orphans, many were not, and the rescue
offered no possibility for families to later reunite.
With sensitivity and balance, Sachs deepens her account by
including multiple perspectives: birth mothers making the
wrenching decision to relinquish their children; orphanage
workers, military personnel, and doctors trying to "save"
them; politicians and judges attempting to untangle the
controversies; adoptive families waiting anxiously for
their new sons and daughters; and the children themselves,
struggling to understand. In particular, the book follows
one such child, Anh Hansen, who left Vietnam through
Operation Babylift and, decades later, returned to reunite
with her birth mother. Through Anh’s story, and those of
many others, The Life We Were Given will inspire
impassioned discussion and spur dialogue on the human cost
of war, international adoption and aid efforts, and U.S.
involvement in Vietnam.
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