“I still have that today,” he said quietly. “What could I have done to save more people.”
What Snedegar, 84, and those surviving babies, now in their 50s, are doing today is keeping the events of that horrific April 4, 1975 day alive by retelling history to students, those who need to hear the words the most, and searching for their parents.
He was the keynote speaker at the breakfast and Snedegar, of Centerville, rarely turns down an opportunity to talk about his 31-year Air Force career. He travels around the country and he’s scheduled to speak twice Sunday during a veterans event at the Greene County Fairgrounds in Xenia.
Throughout Snedegar’s talk on Tuesday as he recounted what happened that day in Saigon, those in the audience, especially the Fenwick students, listened intently as their history books came to life.
A retired Air Force load master, he made sure to tell Fenwick’s staff how impressed he was by the students and how he appreciated how the veterans were treated. After the breakfast, students lined the hallways, waved small American flags and clapped as the veterans walked out of the cafeteria toward the exits.
“It was especially heart-warming to see young people here today,” he said.
Snedegar said that in April of 1975, then President Gerald Ford ordered for troops to evacuate American Asian babies from Saigon, a mission called Operation Babylift. It was thought at the time, that when North Vietnam took over, the babies born to Vietnamese women and U.S. soldiers would be killed.
There were 310 people on a C-5A aircraft when it climbed to 23,800 feet, he said. Then there was a mechanical malfunction, the plane turned around, it continued to travel before it crashed five miles short of the runway.
Every passenger in the cargo area was killed, except for one medical crew member and a 15-year-old girl. There were 135 children and adults killed and Snedegar was one of the 175 who survived.
By the time Operation Babylift was complete, more than 3,000 babies and children of Asian American descent were evacuated to the United States, he said.
Snedegar returned to the crash site 10 years ago to see what happened to those children left behind. He learned they were living in orphanages or on the streets without jobs or the possibility of obtaining their passports.
He also talked about the need to increase the military in the U.S. He believes that every young adult should serve at least two years in the armed forces.
The military teaches “discipline and structure,” two traits needed for employees, regardless of their profession, he said.
“It’s a way to give back to this country that’s so good to all of us,” he said.
When Snedegar, a native of Grange City, Ky., enlisted in the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 7, 1958, it was his ticket out of the family’s agricultural business.
“I took a senior trip to Vietnam to get out of farming,” he said.
When the laughter stopped, he added: “That’s actually true. I would have done anything to get out of farming and I never looked back.”
Snedegar’s first assignment after basic training was in security services in Japan. He ended up in Vietnam in 1963, 1965, 1968 and 1969.
Throughout his Air Force career, he survived three plane crashes when the aircrafts were bombed, shot down and suffered a mechanical malfunction.
Chief Master Sergeant Snedegar retired from the Air Force on Jan. 1, 1990. His decorations include the Distinguished Flying Cross, Airmans Medal for Heroism, four Meritorious Service Medals, 11 Air Medals, six Air Force Commendation Medals, five Outstanding Unit Awards with one V for Valor, and more than 50 other awards, decorations and ribbons.
Some might call Snedegar a war hero. When people see him wearing his military hat in a restaurant, and they buy his meal, he appreciates the gesture.
But “I don’t feel like I deserve that,” he said. “I was just doing my job.”
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