The riveting story of what happened to survivors of a C-5A aircraft crash in Saigon, Vietnam.
In spring of 1975, the US government decided to save as many orphans as possible during the tumultuous fall of Saigon in the last days of the Vietnam War. On April 4, an aircraft lifted off the ground with hundreds of babies and young children crowded into its upper and lower decks, attended to by a crew of dedicated military men and women and a few civilian volunteers fleeing the chaos on the ground. Then a mysterious event occurred: A rear door blew open and the horror began 25,000 feet in the air. Fragile Delivery: Operation Babylift C-5A Crash sheds light on the doomed flight, the brave men and women involved in Operation Babylift, and one man's story of near-impossible survival in the horrifying shadow of death as the plane split violently apart in swampy rice paddies. It is the story of Flint, Michigan native Sgt. Phillip R. Wise and his decades-long quest to find the answers about the crash; bond with the children his mission saved and the few other adults who survived the flight; honor the fallen; and come to terms with why God let him live.
Sgt. Wise also tells an American story of race and class; of the nation's conflicted feelings about the Vietnam War and the men and women who fought it; and of love and redemption. The book takes the reader along a determined black child's path to accomplishment from the early 1950s through his decision to enlist in the United States Air Force in 1970, and beyond. Sgt. Wise weaves a tale with incredible detail and fact, sorrow and laughter that keeps the reader rooting for him all the way.
Fragile Delivery not only shows what happened to many of the frightened, vulnerable children after they were adopted; the book delivers a fascinating account of a critical moment in American history few of us understand or dare to remember. And it introduces us to Phil Wise, a man worth meeting; a real-life hero who lives life with the driven purpose of one who knows God spared him for a reason.
JUST RELEASED (Nov. 2012)
Fragile Delivery is available through Amazon.com and other online bookstores.
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