Infant airlifted out of Vietnam thanks UCLA doctor 35 years later

In April 1975, Vu Tien Kinh arrived at UCLA from battle-torn Vietnam. The orphaned 3-month-old was dehydrated, malnourished and plagued by diarrhea, eye infections and a contagious skin rash.

On Wednesday, Vu returned to thank the doctor who had restored his health.

Barry Halpern was an intern resident 35 years ago when UCLA Medical Center admitted 20 of 219 orphans who were airlifted out of Vu’s orphanage in Saigon just days before the city fell to the North Vietnamese army, ending the Vietnam War.

Halpern oversaw the baby’s treatment, administering antibiotics and other medicines. Two months after Vu’s arrival, Halpern wrote to another doctor, detailing the infant’s medical condition and describing him as “very sociable.”

“He is an extremely interesting patient and we here at UCLA would be very interested to hear how he develops and progresses over the next months,” Halpern wrote.

Vu, a Connecticut music teacher, offered a joking apology Wednesday for the belated update. Speaking before pediatric residents at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, across the street from the old brick building where he had stayed for several months, Vu demonstrated that Halpern’s early personality assessment was accurate.

“It’s an honor to return to my point of entry,” Vu said, with tears in his eyes. “You all are living testimony of the tenets of the Hippocratic Oath and the miracles of modern medicine.”

As Vu tells it, he was on the last airlift out of the South Vietnamese capital, now Ho Chi Minh City, before its capture. The airlift was orchestrated by Betty Tisdale, a Georgia woman who on many trips to Saigon had fallen in love with the wards at An Lac (Happy Place), an orphanage run by Madame Vu Thi Ngai. As North Vietnamese troops neared, Tisdale scrambled to find a way to evacuate the children, most of whom were ill.

A Pan Am charter was too expensive. Eventually, the children were hauled in baskets to an airstrip where Air Force planes awaited. Military personnel said the baskets were unsafe, so Tisdale and her helpers quickly rounded up sturdy cardboard boxes. Each child was loaded into a box and strapped in.

After his hospital stay, Vu was adopted by a Lutheran couple with two biological children. He grew up as Joseph Palmeter in predominantly white central Pennsylvania near Williamsport, known for Little League baseball. “The only times I saw Asians were when the Taiwanese Little League teams came to whup the tails of Americans,” he said.

His father, a plumber, told him: “I work extra hours so you don’t have to, and I get my hands dirty so you don’t have to.”

Vu earned a bachelor’s degree in music education at Westminster College in Pennsylvania and a master’s in conducting at Penn State University. This year, he will begin a doctoral program in music education and conducting at the University of Minnesota.

In January, Vu legally changed his name back to the one he had when he arrived on U.S. soil. It was the first step, he said, toward learning about his roots. Searching for the necessary paperwork, he came across copies of his old UCLA medical records.

Halpern, now 61, left UCLA in 1977 and later became medical director of the neonatal intensive-care unit at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Through an online search, Vu located Halpern in Northridge and sent him a letter: “It is my pleasure to write you that I am well.” He mentioned that he would be in Anaheim for a music educators conference. Halpern called him, affording Vu a heart-palpitating “OMG moment.” UCLA arranged the reunion.

Vu said he no longer speaks to his adoptive family. “We had issues,” he said. “You can’t choose your family.”

He said he hopes one day to tour Vietnam. But in the meantime, he said, he was looking forward to a visit to Little Saigon in Westminster -- for some real Vietnamese food.

martha.groves@latimes.com