Stephen Burwinkel, the Kirk's medic - in the Navy he's called a hospital corpsman - went from ship to ship attending to those with dysentery, dehydration, diarrhea and other illnesses.īao Le had gotten violently sick with cramps and fever, so Loan Le and her infant were moved from a South Vietnamese ship to the Kirk. The flotilla escorted the South Vietnamese ships to the Philippines.ĭuring the crossing people soon became sick in the cramped ships. The Kirk started the rescue and was then joined by other Navy ships. Those 30 South Vietnamese ships, trailed by scores of fishing boats, were packed with more than 20,000 refugees, including the Le family, desperate to leave Vietnam. In the spring of 1975, as Saigon fell and the Vietnam War ended, the USS Kirk was chosen to go back to Vietnam, by itself, on a mission to rescue the remnants of the South Vietnamese Navy, to prevent those ships from falling into the possession of the North Vietnamese. The NPR series told the forgotten tale of the Kirk, which had started one of the greatest humanitarian missions in the history of the American military.
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