Babies as balls

On one of the accounts from a Navy man who worked on USS Kirk during the Frequent Wind evacuation at the end of the Vietnam War (recording to be sent to his wife) “they tossed babies from 25 feet in the air, out of Chinooks, and we caught them like basketballs”.

Meanwhile, per Newsweek piece, last piece on the Fall of Saigon, the writer stayed and boarded next-to-last chopper out of the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon. His fellow passengers, the Lucky Few, were Ambassador Martin’s aide, and his black poodle Nitnoy (per Loren Jenkins’ account).

On the UK chart, we found Bye Bye Baby among the top. Sing on, baby. Fly on down. We’ll catch you.

Get on the plane, the bus, and the ship. We are into hardware transport, not human cargo.

Babies as balls. As political balls, to be punt, fourth down.

Back and forth. Life as a game, Earth our stadium.

Opposing teams, opposing parties. At least, when the Navy men decided to push those choppers to the side (after yanking out headsets and hardware), to make room for the next landing on limited space on ship deck (the sky was dotted with bees-like choppers), the quote was “human is more than hardware”.

In today’s toxic environment, I am not so sure.

Even the Son of Man who shows up today, with “Christ” still in “Christmas”, would definitely be rejected or punt out of state.

Saigon babies are all grown up now. Many have gone on with their Medical careers. Exchange rates help elevate the status of those who fled and flourished.

Those stayed behind, bought new flags and hung up new portraits. Streets got renamed. Statues replaced. Markets meanwhile keep on selling confiscated goods. Hush hush. It’s the US dollars (slightly burned, recovered from oil barrels at the airport and the Embassy), relics of an old-time passing.

If people can revise history on that sad chapter, they can rewrite anything.

Bye bye baby. Bye Bye Basketballs. A view from an US-made Chinook. Catch them if you can.

Aboard a ship or on the bus.

California is where reality meets rhetoric.

A Hail Mary toss of the ball. Quite a pass. A punt. To improve the scores before game over. Except, life is not a game. And human not hardware, as they once said , aboard USS Kirk. Those Lucky Few numbered around 30,000. Could have been transported to the Island of Borneo, to never be seen nor heard again. To never pursue a career in dentistry or medicine. Heck with today’s exchange rates that help their inflated status – to conveniently play both sides of the fence, covering up once painful past: babies as balls in the air.