Vietnamese-American Son finds his Father 50 years Later
There are lots of fascinating reunification stories out there, but not many get crazier than this one!
Hugh Nguyen was born to 16-year-old Van Nguyen in Vietnam during the war. Van’s job was to serve coffee and snacks to US soldiers in a tourist area. This is where she met 18-year-old Roy Patterson, Hugh’s father.
After later learning she was pregnant, Van returned to the camp to find Patterson, but fellow soldiers told her that he died in combat.
A few years later, Hugh and his half-sister also fathered by an American solider, were left with their aunt and grandparents. They were to be placed for adoption under President Ford’s Operation Baby Lift, a program to rescue orphaned children fathered by American soldiers.
They were saved from their first brush with death when, overcome with guilt, Hugh’s grandparents pulled both children from the plane before it took off. The plane crashed in rice fields outside Saigon, killing everyone on board.
Hugh and his sister narrowly escaped death a second time when they survived the Tan Son Nhut Airport bombing while trying to fly out of the country. They finally made it out of the country in April of 1975 in one of the last helicopters leaving Vietnam.
Years passed with Hugh wondering who his father was. He took a DNA paternity test in 2015 but no parental results came up. But after connecting with a second cousin through Facebook, the two were able to find Patterson. After Patterson’s paternity test came back with over a 99% parental match, the two met for the first time and were amazed to learn the details of each other’s stories.
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