Ledger-Enquirer
November 16, 1999

Orphan Angel
By Tony Adams

Jason Robertson is a Tisdale baby. Residents who have been in Columbus since the Vietnam War will likely know what that means. Tisdale is short for Betty Tisdale, the woman who saved a great many orphans displaced by the bloodbath in Southeast Asia. Robertson was one of them.

He knows neither who his birth mother or father are. But he still knows Betty - even after 27 years. Though she now lives in Seattle, he's kept in touch with the former Columbus resident over time, and over miles.

 "Without Betty, who knows where I might be now?" Jason, now 28, said in a recent interview. "I could be dead with everything that was happening…at that time."

Known as the "Angel of Saigon, " Tisdale drew national attention in 1975 when she negotiated with the South Vietnamese government for the release of 400 orphans. With Communist troops closing in on Saigon, Tisdale was desperate to move the children from the An Lac Orphanage to the United States.

 "My greatest fear is that they will grow up in a Godless society," she said at the time.

Tisdale would achieve a partial victory, managing to fly 219 children - many of them infants - out of Vietnam. The aircraft headed for nearby Fort Benning. There, the kids would be treated for malnourishment, physical deformities and less severe problems, such as lice and scabies.

Robertson actually arrived in the United Stages Two years before that emergency airlift. He was among dozens of private adoptions arranged by Tisdale from the time she began visiting An Lac Orphanage in 1961, where she was appalled by the bony children and rusty cribs on the property. Robertson remembers the orphanage, even though he was only three years old.

 "For the first few years, I had a lot of "flashbacks," he said. "People ask how can I remember that because I was so young. But it was chaos. It was loud. And I remember all of the kids in there, and the soldiers coming through."

Jason's father, Bill Robertson of Pine Mountain, Ga., recalls the bureaucracy Tisdale helped cut through when and wife, Wanda decided to adopt a Vietnamese child. They were ready to give up their dream of adopting when Tisdale called and said she was going to send a picture of a youngster. Take a look at the photo and if you like what you see, give me a call, she said at the time. Within five months, Jason - his Vietnamese name is Vu Tien Phuoc-arrived at the airport in Atlanta. They guessed him to be three years old.

 "He could not walk, so we had to work him through that," said Bill Robertson, a technician with Georgia Power. "One of his ear drums was completely gone. We prayed for a miracle and it took place. His ear drum closed up to a tiny pin hole and was sealed with a skin graft."

William Jason Robertson the family named him. He became a brother to the Robertson's natural daughter, Dara, who was about the same age. Wanda Robertson would give birth to two more children.

Jason grew up like any American kid, attending a private school through elementary grades before graduating from Haraway High and Columbus College. Soccer was his passion when he wasn't hitting the books. He still loves the sport.

Today, he is marketing director for Home Instead Senior Care, a company that provides nonmedical services for elderly residents in Columbus. He dedicates his work to the mother in Vietnam that he never knew. But one day, he hopes to find her.

 "She put me in that orphanage because she knew I would have a better life in America than I ever could have in Vietnam," said Robertson who has a wife, a young son, and a baby girl on the way.

Tisdale, reached via telephone at her home in Seattle, said she enjoys keeping in touch with the children she helped bring to this country. It appears many of them are giving back to their communities - one is a schoolteacher, another a social worker and one even works at an orphanage in Romania.

 "I don't know if they're doing it on purpose or not, having this feeling of wanting to give something back," she said "But it makes me feel so good that these children have, on their own, decided to do these things." Tisdale, who moved to Seattle in 1982, didn't take on the responsibility of these kids alone. She received help from her now-former husband, Dr. Patrick Tisdale, a retired Army pediatrician who treated many of the Vietnamese children who arrived in 1975. During their marriage, the couple themselves adopted 10 Vietnamese children.

After the last airlift, Betty Tisdale didn't venture back to Vietnam until 1975.

 "I didn't try to go back before because I had heard rumors I was on a list the Communists had that I was a baby stealer and they might try to detain me," said Tisdale, who traveled with on of her daughters.

The trip went off without a hitch and Tisdale met with many of the children - now adults - who were left behind at An Lac Orphanage. It helped put behind her the feeling that had "plagued me for years" that more could have been done to get all of the children out of Vietnam.

Those youngsters who did make it to American in the mid-1970s captured the hearts of Columbus residents. Volunteers mobilized to fed them and change dirty diapers. While some were adopted by families in Columbus most found homes in Pennsylvania.

Tisdale, who now consults on humanitarian projects, is more than happy to talk with the children from An Lac Orphanage. She invites them to email her at etisdale1@aol.com or to call 206-282-7337 to chat.

 "I think most of them go through this period of not wanting to know much about their background," she said of the kids. "Then, all of a sudden, they come into their early 20s and really want to know about their roots. And the only person to contact is me."

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