101st Soldier shares Asian heritage story

By Megan Locke Simpson, Fort Campbell CourierMay 22, 2015

101st Soldier shares Asian heritage story
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. -- Everybody has a story, and the Army is a great organization in which to learn from other's stories. That is the lesson 101st Airborne Division Assistant Chief of Staff G1 Lt. Col. Rebecca Eggers learned recently. As the keynote speaker for the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month observance today at Cole Park Commons, she shared a story that expands beyond her "Wisconsin farm kid" upbringing.

"I'm actually Vietnamese. I came over to the United States on one of the Operation Babylift flights from Vietnam in 1975, so this is the 40th anniversary this year," Eggers said during a Courier interview earlier this week.

"It happened in April 1975, and it was meant to get orphans out of South Vietnam before Saigon fell," Eggers said.

The humanitarian mission near the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam evacuated children to the United States and other allied countries. President Gerald Ford authorized $2 million for 30 flights, the first of which crashed -- killing most of those aboard. The original child Rebecca's parents planned to adopt was on this flight. The couple was devastated.

Eggers was one of more than 2,000 children, with some reports suggesting more than 3,000, flown out by the U.S. military. Most already had adoptions in the works, but Eggers was just days old at the time. As an unclaimed orphan she was adopted by John and Judy, the Wisconsin couple who had planned to adopt a baby from the original flight. They also adopted another 8-month-old girl flown to the U.S. on a separate Operation Babylift flight. "[Some of the orphans] take a yearly trip," Eggers said. "They go back to Vietnam, and they can see where they were adopted from and things like that. It's really neat. It was a huge operation. I don't know that there are too many orphans that came over from Vietnam at that time that would say that they're sad that [happened]."

Eggers is "extremely grateful" that the U.S. military conducted Operation Babylift. She admits she did not know a lot about her journey to America prior to her adult years.

"When I was in high school, I wasn't extremely inquisitive about how I got here," she said. "[When] you're a teenager, you just want to fit in. You don't want to be different from your peers. So it wasn't really until I got into college and I actually got into the military that I essentially grew up. I started asking my mom more questions."

Although more practical concerns led Eggers to join the Army 18 years ago, learning more about Operation Babylift gives her a new outlook on her job.

"It's definitely renewed my reason for serving," she said.

The common history she shares with a segment of her Vietnamese-American peers has helped her to become more interested in the culture. She also hopes to visit Vietnam one day with her sister, who visits family there frequently.

"We grew up in Wisconsin. We were a farming Family," Eggers recalled. "There was no Vietnamese culture -- no communities around us. The closest one was in Madison, which was about an hour away."

Seeing others in the Army genuinely interested in knowing about where she came from and her background is something Eggers appreciates now.

"The one thing I really love about the Army is that it is a melting pot," she said. "People are honestly interested in where you're from and what you're background is. It's refreshing, quite frankly, to be asked, 'Hey where are you from?' and 'What's your story?'"

During today's observance, entertainment and food was available to highlight Asian-American and Pacific Islander heritage. Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month pays homage to those with roots in many different countries, U.S. states and territories, including Japan, the Philippines, North and South Korea, Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa, among others. The Asia-Pacific region encompasses all of Asia, as well as the Pacific islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. For more information, visit asianpacificheritage.gov.

"It's an enormous array of cultures," Eggers said. "Everybody's story is different, and I think we should respect everybody's story."

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