The following is an excerpt from Gary B. Macchioni’s soon-to-be-published book “Words from a Vietnam Vet: Words I could not Write.” The book features and speaks of letters Macchioni wrote home to his mother while stationed in Vietnam. Few of the letters told the truth of the reality of his experiences while there.
Our Babies, Our Disgrace
“Although I wrote about our babies in the Letters, there is so much more to share. I simply could not ever imagine what I would see and how I would feel when I first arrived at the orphanage and experienced our babies. It was instant heart break. The crowd of those little arms reaching out to us needed so much more than I could provide. First, the ugly news; Most of those babies were a mix of African American and Vietnamese. The Vietnamese government and many of their citizens were very prejudiced against our soldiers of color. That includes any color other than theirs. It was very ironic that a race that was hurt the most by prejudice was also very prejudiced. Those orphans were not recognized as Vietnamese citizens. They were the unwanted outcasts. It was because of the love and generosity of the local Catholic Nuns, that these innocent babies survived.
Those orphans were not recognized as Vietnamese citizens. They were the unwanted outcasts.
Our government was completely complicit with that prejudice. It was like if they looked the other way, the problem would disappear. I believe that we were all responsible, because we, as a nation, created this senseless war. Did we expect that our soldiers would remain celibate? That most certainly was not feasible. Many, rather most of us had sexual relations with the readily available Vietnamese women. If a young Vietnamese woman became pregnant with an unwanted baby, she would disappear from sight until she had the child, gave up the child, and resumed her only way of survival that she knew of.
I always felt that those adorable little children that I held in my arms, were little human beings that also did not have much of a reasonable future within the Vietnamese society. I witnessed the outcast treatment that the remote village people received from the local village people. For our mixed-race babies, it was much worse.
After I left Vietnam, I was a guest lecturer, complete with photos, at local and regional adoption groups. Unfortunately, there was not much that could be done. Even such agencies as the Pearl Buck Foundation could not cut through the red tape. There was a little hope when I found out that orphans from around the country were being air lifted to the United States for adoption. I also heard that one of the first Air Force C-5 Galaxies that had orphans aboard crashed during the takeoff from around the Saigon region. I don’t know how many, or if any, survived. To this day, I wonder if any of babies at our orphanage made it out of the country.”
Gary B. Macchioni
Honor, Michigan (former of Hershey, Pennsylvania)