00:00:00
He calls me and I can hear him telling them that he found me. I can hear her crying and then I start crying.
00:00:10
And it was just like, oh my gosh, like she's just been waiting for us all these years.
00:00:18
She grew up in a sprawling, loving family, but couldn't help wondering about her roots.
00:00:25
What am I really? I was wanting to know where my people came from. So like millions of us do every year, she took a DNA test.
00:00:33
Her results? Jaw-dropping. Goosebumps! I'm getting them right now. I'm like, oh my gosh.
00:00:39
A revelation with implications for the entire family. My dad's like, what do you think?
00:00:44
When I started looking at all this proof, I started realizing, oh my gosh. The discovery now taking them to the other side of the world.
00:00:53
And back in time. I don't think you expected to come down here and feel all these things.
00:00:59
No, I thought I was tougher than that. All to meet a perfect stranger with a story to tell.
00:01:05
She's my hero. History may get righted. A secret revealed. A family transformed.
00:01:11
A moment almost 50 years in the making. It's beautiful. Yeah. It still doesn't feel real.
00:01:19
Incredible. It's like magic. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Harry Smith with Father's Day.
00:01:29
On a cool spring morning in Yakima, Washington, Michael Heintz is calling the day to order.
00:01:38
Carter, did you want any toast, bud? As super moms go, she is all that and then some.
00:01:43
Do you guys want cucumber on your wrap? Michael has a family nickname, Extra. Yeah, I called that like every day.
00:01:54
You're good? Okay. Next. Where'd you grow up? Here. A mile away from my house. Wow.
00:02:02
Yes. What was that like? It was great. I mean, I was able to walk to school, and we had lots of sports, and sisters, you know,
00:02:12
fighting and sharing clothes and, you know, all that good stuff. She's a working mother and wife and schedule juggler for her husband, the soccer coach,
00:02:22
and three kids who all play soccer. Have you taken new P.E. clothes? Yes, she is a soccer mom.
00:02:28
All right, peeps. Love you. Hey! Love you. But one thing was missing... I'll do a headbutt.
00:02:34
...from her very full life. Love you. And Michael was obsessed with it. Her mother was adopted, so there was no record or connection
00:02:43
to her mother's biological side of the family. For Michael, it was a gaping hole.
00:02:50
Well, I think just from the time I was little, you know, when you were in elementary school and you build family trees,
00:02:55
and I could only build like one side. You know, I never knew who the other side of me was.
00:03:01
And while they are close, Michael's mom was not willing to help solve the mystery.
00:03:06
She never had a desire to find her family. She had really good parents, but they passed away before I was born.
00:03:14
Michael's father, Jim, on the other hand, had a family tree that was full and rich in details.
00:03:20
We had my aunts and uncles, and I had, you know, tons of cousins. Jim and Michael's mother divorced years ago.
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He is an Army veteran who worked in law enforcement and sales. What do you like about raising cattle?
00:03:35
I love the smell. I love their demeanor. He runs a few head of cattle on the outskirts of Yakima
00:03:43
and was eyeing a predictable retirement of leisure and grandkids. How would you characterize your life now?
00:03:50
Oh, it's blessed because I've got God in it. We go to church, we pray every night, our kids are going to churches, and it can't be any better.
00:04:01
To Michael, her father's family history had not been an issue. As best she could tell, all had been accounted for.
00:04:09
I thought it was cut and dry. When did you decide you wanted to get a DNA test? Probably a couple years ago, but I was just a little bit nervous because my mom is adopted,
00:04:20
and I was really sensitive to her feelings. Busy with her job as a recycling coordinator, the idea of a DNA test to learn about her mother's side of the family would occasionally come up with one of Michael's co-workers.
00:04:35
The woman, who was adopted, encouraged Michael to get it done. So I sent away for a DNA kit, and I had the kit for maybe a couple months, actually, before I actually tested, just because I was nervous.
00:04:50
My co-workers kept on saying, did you do it? How come you haven't done your test?
00:04:54
And so finally I did it. How do you do it? What do you do? So you just spit in a tube and four to six weeks, you have your results.
00:05:00
Start showing you all your second and fourth cousins. And now, you know, it's been a year and a half and I have over 1100 fourth cousins or
00:05:09
sooner that match me just on this one test. But the initial results of the search left Michael wanting more.
00:05:17
What she did not have was the genetic trail to her mother's birth parents or any other
00:05:22
close relatives on that side. Who did you think might be out there? My family from my mom's side.
00:05:29
I think a huge part of me just wanted to know, like, hey, when I celebrate St. Patrick's
00:05:33
Day, am I Irish? Frustrated and eager to learn more, she widened her search. She sent her DNA information to another company with two million different profiles in their
00:05:46
database. DNA is like a history book written into your cells and only now in the beginning
00:05:53
of the 21st century are we learning how to read the book What does this one do So here we extracting DNA We extract Bennett Greenspan founded a company called Family Tree DNA
00:06:07
He explains genetic matches are measured by something called centimorgans. The higher it goes, the closer the match is, basically.
00:06:16
That's exactly right. So, for example, between a parent-child, there's about 3,300 centimorgans in common.
00:06:24
Michael sent her DNA to Family Tree. It didn't take but a few hours for the computers to find a match.
00:06:34
You know, I share the story with people. I get just as excited again. The evening after Michael sent in her DNA, she remembers being restless.
00:06:43
I decided that night that I was going to check. I was in my bed and got on my iPad and was looking and I saw a match.
00:06:53
A big match, a close match. No second cousin twice removed. The adrenaline immediately started rushing through me, and I just was like, oh my gosh, I found my mom's parents.
00:07:05
That's where my head went immediately, and they're still alive. Michael told no one that night, but showed the results to her friend at work, the one who encouraged her to do the DNA search.
00:07:16
She's like, oh Michael, there's an email address. Google the email address. I Google the address and it's this nonprofit group that helps Amerasians from Vietnam.
00:07:28
And I thought, what is that about? I'm like, this is a scam. Like, how do they do that?
00:07:33
Like my mom's always said, this is a scam. This sounds like I'm the poor Nigerian billionaire.
00:07:38
Right? That's what I'm thinking. Yes. Just send us $1,000. Yes, right now. Yeah.
00:07:42
And then we'll send you, you know, a million later. But this was no scam. The group was a non-profit organization called Amerasians Without Borders.
00:07:53
And it's helping people from Vietnam, left children from the Vietnam War. I was like, oh my, and we both like look at each other and I'm like, goosebumps, I'm getting them right now.
00:08:05
I'm like, oh my gosh. Michael and her co-worker had found something big. when we come back for michael and her family the first in a life-changing string of surprises
00:08:21
i was just like what is this is this real a revelation triggering a remarkable conversation
00:08:27
i can hear her crying and then i start crying It's a new day in Yakima, Washington,
00:08:50
an area where snow-capped mountains crown the horizon. This is home to Michael Hines, who made the discovery of a lifetime.
00:08:59
There's no way. That's not real. That didn't really happen. What? You know. The initial disbelief came for good reason.
00:09:07
Her DNA match was closer than anything she had ever dreamed of. Michael sent a note to the mysterious email address included in her DNA results.
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A cautious note. Without giving out too much information, wanting to know what they're about,
00:09:23
saying that we had a match. So you're tiptoeing. Tiptoeing, yes. Very cautious. And then I had to wait. It was like 24 hours.
00:09:33
It was a long time. It was like the next day. I was just like, oh my gosh, what is this? Is this real?
00:09:40
Michael's DNA test had hit a bullseye. Her mind raced. Were her mother's biological parents alive?
00:09:47
Was there an aunt or an uncle or a cousin? Was this the news she had yearned for?
00:09:53
The man with the answer was Jimmy Miller, who lives in Spokane, Washington. Where were you born?
00:09:59
I'm born in Vietnam, Saigon, Vietnam. In Saigon? Yes. Miller runs an organization called Amerasians Without Borders.
00:10:07
He sends DNA kits to Vietnamese who believe they were fathered by an American. How many Amerasians do you think are still in Vietnam?
00:10:16
About 500. Only 500? 500. One of those 500 was the match Michael Heintz had just discovered.
00:10:26
What is it like for you when there's a real connection? To be here, it's just like a Wendell Auto.
00:10:32
win the lotto. The news Jimmy had to share would change lives. He reached out to Michael to tell her
00:10:39
she had a half-sister halfway around the world in Vietnam. Her name, Lynn Thoc. And he's talking
00:10:48
to me about, yes, this is who she is. This is her story. We did a DNA test like four years ago.
00:10:58
It had been over four years that she had taken her DNA test. And before she knew it, Jimmy said, I can get Lynn on the phone.
00:11:06
He goes, I'll be the translator because I'm sure she doesn't speak English. And like 15 minutes later, he calls me.
00:11:13
He did like a party line and he's calling Vietnam. Woke them up and I can hear him telling them that he found me.
00:11:20
And then I can hear her crying. and then um um i started crying and it was just like oh my gosh like she's just been waiting for
00:11:35
us all these years and um and so they were saying he was telling them that this is your sister
00:11:43
michael and this is and this is your sister lynn yes there was a bullseye from michael's dna test
00:11:50
a sister But the big surprise the match was on her father side of the family tree It never once crossed my mind that it would be anybody from my dad side I knew everybody right No I just didn even think I just automatically assumed it would be for my mom
00:12:07
In tears, Michael had a question for her newfound sister. I asked her if she wanted to know anything about her dad.
00:12:15
And Lynn just said, I just want to know the photo of my dad. So I wanted to know how my dad looked like.
00:12:23
That's what Lynn said. And when Lynn said that, I just tears my eyes. You started crying.
00:12:28
Yeah, I started crying. For Michael, everything was coming into focus. Her father was a Vietnam veteran, and it was now obvious there was more to his war story than anyone had known.
00:12:40
I told her, you know, he's a wonderful man. He was in Vietnam for the war, and it was just really emotional.
00:12:51
I mean, and I could just hear her crying. She couldn't even talk. Still stunned, Michael knew what she had to do next, but she wasn't sure how.
00:13:01
You know that you have a sister in Vietnam. You've spoken with your sister in Vietnam.
00:13:07
You've cried together on the phone. When are you going to tell your father? Coming up, Michael shares the stunning news with Jim.
00:13:20
He's like, what are you saying? For this father, a shock that will leave him shaken to the core.
00:13:27
When Dateline continues. Now, when did you call your father? So I called him the next day.
00:13:45
I just thought I have to do it and I don't know if I'll get up the courage. Michael Heintz had just learned she had a sister in Vietnam.
00:13:53
Now, sitting in a grocery store parking lot, she knew she had a call to make. I was like, hey, Dad, you know how I've been doing that genealogy stuff?
00:14:02
And he's like, yeah, yeah. Did you find anything? And I said, yeah, I think I found something.
00:14:08
I think I found a sister. And he's like, he like laughed. Do you remember that phone call?
00:14:14
yeah uh she explained that she had done a dna and that there was a lot of hits and i just kind
00:14:23
of chuckled and i think he thought maybe it was like my mom's from a previous relationship
00:14:27
that's in my head i said dad she's yours and he's like what and i said she's vietnamese
00:14:35
and then he just like started crying he couldn't like hardly talk he's like what are you saying
00:14:42
Jim was suddenly thrust back in time to a place he preferred to forget. The American military command today confirmed reports that United States dead in the Vietnam War now total more than 30,000.
00:14:57
The year 1968. The Vietnam War was at its peak. And so were protests against it.
00:15:05
Yet many young Americans, like Jim Hines, volunteered to serve. He was 18. When did you decide to join the Army?
00:15:14
I graduated in May of 68, and my cousin and I and a friend decided we were going to go into the buddy program,
00:15:22
and we went in in November of 68. Heinz was first stationed in Germany, but soon came the orders to go to Vietnam.
00:15:30
You're wondering, you know, what's it going to be like? Am I going to come back?
00:15:34
The young GI was assigned to a security unit for an Army road building crew northeast of Saigon.
00:15:41
When I moved into the security platoon, there was probably about 12 guys in the bunker that I was at,
00:15:47
and I think there was four or five what we called housegirls doing their laundry and stuff.
00:15:54
And after a couple of weeks, the girls came up to me and said that they had a girlfriend that would like to come to work,
00:16:01
Would I like to have a housegirl? I said, yeah. Her name was Tonti Ton, and she worked for Jim doing things like laundry and picking up around the bunker.
00:16:12
But their relationship was also one of affection. These are pictures of Tonti with Jim from his scrapbook.
00:16:19
She's wearing a necklace he bought for her. Jim's family had all seen the pictures.
00:16:25
Tonti was no secret. Were you in love with her? I would say yes and no, because I knew there was a time when I was going to go home.
00:16:33
I tried not to be, but yeah, I would probably die for her if somebody tried to hurt her.
00:16:41
Was it a sexual relationship? It turned out that way. One Friday night, Tanti told me that the Viet Cong were supposed to be coming into their area to resupply,
00:16:55
which they would just go in and break into houses or businesses or whatever. Jim told Tanti she could stay with him on the base.
00:17:03
War brought them together that weekend. But not long after that, Jim was sent home.
00:17:09
He left Vietnam and Tanti behind. did it ever occur to you in a million years that you might have a child back no not at all yeah
00:17:20
not at all michael says her father was truly stunned he's like wait a minute she can't be
00:17:27
mine because i was sent home and so then he started doing the back dating and he's like oh
00:17:32
my gosh she would have been maybe like six eight weeks maybe she didn't even know at the time that
00:17:36
she was pregnant. Michael asked her dad if he would take a DNA test too. He didn't just do one, he did two.
00:17:43
Though it didn't take long for Jim to wonder if they were necessary. Michael and Lynn swapped photos, and Michael sent a picture of Lynn to her father.
00:17:53
And in it he saw himself I saw her teeth were like mine with the space on it and her cheekbones and I said yeah I believe that probably my daughter His DNA results then confirmed it Jim Heintz
00:18:08
had fathered a child when he served in Vietnam. Jim also learned sadly that Taunty, the girl he
00:18:15
left behind, had died just a few years after they'd been together. Their daughter Lynn was
00:18:22
raised by her grandparents who pretended she was adopted. Jimmy Miller explained to the
00:18:28
Heinzes what Lin's life had been like and how difficult it was after the war to be an
00:18:34
Amerasian in Vietnam. When we go out, people call us name and say, you're half-breed.
00:18:42
Half-breed? Half-breed, yeah. Wow. And go back to your country. Sometimes we go out and all the kids throw rocks at us
00:18:50
or beating us. For Jim, the pain was compounded, first not knowing about his daughter at all,
00:18:59
and then learning what a hard life she had to endure. I just feel sorry for her that she had to go for 40-plus years
00:19:09
without a mom or a dad. That'd be terrible. Jim and his second wife, Jerry, have a blended family that includes five daughters, their husbands, and a passel of grandkids.
00:19:27
Jerry about melted when Jim told her his news. He had his own kids, and I had my kids, and we raised them all together, you know.
00:19:37
But when we thought out about Lynn, he said that Lynn was our daughter together.
00:19:44
because, you know, his kids have a mom. And I know they see me as a stepmom, but Lynn has not had a mom since she was four.
00:19:55
And so it was very special to me to think that Lynn could be our daughter together that we never had.
00:20:02
But while the Heintzes welcomed the discovery of a daughter, a sister in Vietnam,
00:20:07
Lynn had a request Jerry wasn't sure Jim could fulfill. I don't think he realizes some of the pain that he carries from the war.
00:20:18
Lin wanted Jim to come to Vietnam, a place to which he vowed he would never return.
00:20:25
Coming up, an extraordinary journey as the Heinzes travel thousands of miles and a few last emotional feet to meet Lin.
00:20:36
How are you, big guy? So what else are we missing? You need to put your... My hair dryer.
00:20:55
Your hair dryer away, because I don't need it. How do you pack for a trip you thought you never wanted to take?
00:21:05
If you are Jim and Jerry Heintz, it is with purpose and no small amount of trepidation.
00:21:10
Lynn's had 46 years to dream about what her parents might be like. And so I'm afraid we can't live up to those big dreams.
00:21:20
Their lives have changed since learning Jim fathered a child in Vietnam. And all the time since you served there.
00:21:29
Did it ever occur to you to go back? No, never. But it is because of Jim's Vietnamese daughter's plea,
00:21:36
he and Jerry are traveling to the other side of the world. Some people would feel like the floor had been pulled out from underneath them.
00:21:44
I don't have the sense that you feel that way. She's my blood, and my job is to take care of her.
00:21:51
There's one more. Isn't there? Jim's daughter, Michael, whose DNA test set off the whole chain of events...
00:21:58
Like a glove. ...gets them on their way. The circumstances of this journey, a far cry from the last time Jim Heintz flew to Vietnam.
00:22:08
Back then, he was on his way to war. Thank you so much. This time, he's on his way to meet the child he never knew he had.
00:22:19
I'm not going to say why didn't it happen sooner or why did it happen now. It's happening. God's with us.
00:22:26
And we're going full force to go get him. Ladies and gentlemen, we have just landed at OGC airport.
00:22:33
After three flights and more than 24 hours of travel, We're here. they head straight to a hotel to meet Lin.
00:22:44
The drive across town through midday traffic reveals a modern-day Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City,
00:22:51
where for a young and ambitious population, the war is not even a memory. A lot of scooters.
00:22:57
Jim has had weeks to think about what he first wants to say to his daughter. I text her and I says, I'm real close.
00:23:05
He's anxious. He so wants to get this right. I don't know if it's the right word, but I was going to say what I think is sorry in that, Mrs. Sin Loi.
00:23:15
I'm sorry. Sorry for not being a father to her. Waiting in a hotel lobby across town is Lynn.
00:23:23
By her side, her husband, Key. And perhaps most excited of all, their 17-year-old daughter, New.
00:23:31
The van arrives and within seconds Jim and his wife Jerry are crossing a street with only one thing on their minds,
00:23:39
to embrace their newfound family. There's New. New can't wait and is quickly engulfed in Jerry's arms, while Jim makes a beeline for Lynn.
00:23:51
Oh, still, still, boy. My daughter. I love you. Space and time evaporate in an instant.
00:24:04
Months before, these people were unknown to each other. Yet tears and emotions flow freely.
00:24:12
Tears of joy, to be sure. But also some tears of sorrow. For time lost. I've been waiting 45 years, Lynn says,
00:24:27
hugging the father she always hoped to find. For reasons only people in their circumstances could understand,
00:24:36
they seem reluctant to let go. The ties that bind form quickly. Yet language remains a barrier.
00:24:44
Lynn speaks no English. Ki speaks some. And it is left to 17-year-old Nu to be the family interpreter.
00:24:52
Ask your mom if this seems real. Does this seem like it's actually happening, or is this a dream?
00:25:01
The dream come true. As for Jim... How are you, big guy? I am well. My war's over. I got my baby.
00:25:19
Back in Yakima, Michael and other family members got updates with videos Jim and Jerry posted to Facebook.
00:25:27
What are you seeing? It was an adrenaline rush. You know, we're like, are they there yet?
00:25:33
And we see them, like, crossing the street. And we were all, like, online at the same time.
00:25:38
And it was just crazy. And then you're crying, and it felt like we were just right there.
00:25:48
This is Jim and Lynn's first family dinner. The setting? A rooftop restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City.
00:25:55
The modern skyline provides a glittering backdrop, and American pop music echoes up from the streets below.
00:26:03
Where we live, there's no noise. While there is much of the past to discuss, there is a higher priority.
00:26:11
Lynn and her family want to emigrate to the United States as soon as possible. She wants to spend the rest of her life close to the father she never had,
00:26:20
And Jim and Jerry now want that too. To make that happen, they'll need the help of this man.
00:26:29
John Aloia ran the visa section at the U.S. Consulate in Vietnam when we visited.
00:26:34
For Emirations in Vietnam, life has been an uphill climb from day one. Think about it.
00:26:41
Born in a war-torn country, raised in an impoverished one, bullied at school for looking different.
00:26:49
Back in the 1980s, images of Lee Van Min, a disabled homeless Amerasian boy, captured America's attention, prompting the U.S. Congress to pass the Amerasian Homecoming Act, allowing for those in Vietnam fathered by USGIs to immigrate to the United States.
00:27:09
In the initial years, appearance alone could get you to the U.S. Now the bar is higher, much higher.
00:27:17
DNA evidence between an Amerasian and their father, and even their half-sibling, is the gold standard.
00:27:25
Lynn has that, but paperwork and documentation from her childhood is sparse and sometimes inaccurate.
00:27:33
Corrections take time. Jim and Jerry want their Vietnamese family to come home with them.
00:27:39
But for now, they must wait for the U.S. consulate's decision. We're hoping that they would give us more of a timeline of when Lynn and her family can come to America.
00:27:52
Because we really have no idea at this point. In the meantime, there is an emotional journey to complete to Jim's past.
00:28:01
Coming up, at the next stop, something Jim just wasn't prepared for. I thought I was tougher than that.
00:28:10
When Dateline continues. Thank you Jim Hines is a long way from home With his jeans rolled up, he stands in the shallow surf of the South China Sea.
00:28:33
It's been nearly 50 years since he was last here. A few feet away, a scene unfolds that no one could script.
00:28:40
The Vietnamese granddaughter he never knew about, splashing in the waves with his wife, Jerry, her new grandmother.
00:28:48
I don't think you expected to come down here and feel all these things. No, I thought I was tougher than that.
00:29:03
They've driven six hours from Saigon to get here. The district of Thuy Phong. Like much of Vietnam, a place of contrast.
00:29:14
An area where the modern and the traditional coincide. Scenes at the marketplace or at the harbor look much the way they have for decades.
00:29:25
This is where Jim Heintz was deployed during the Vietnam War. How much joy does it give you to see your wife and your granddaughter in this water today?
00:29:37
It's very exciting. And I know Tanti Tan would really like Jerry and really know that Jerry cares just as much about hers
00:29:50
as Tanti would care about her family. Lynn wanted her father to come back to Tui Fong
00:29:57
to help her paint a portrait of a woman she barely remembers but still loves very much.
00:30:03
They visited the very site of Jim's military outpost, now in Industrial Park. This is my place where we were.
00:30:16
Lynn's mother died when she was a small child. To Lynn, this is sacred ground, the one place where her mother and father were together.
00:30:27
The building over there, that's where my bunker was, where your mom and I were always at.
00:30:33
Jim's memories are translated for Lin, who feels her mother's presence all too vividly.
00:30:40
Lin told us that her mother was pregnant with her here, and that's making her memories very painful.
00:30:52
But over the course of this trip, we watched pain turn into joy, and the two families blend into one.
00:31:02
into one. Their most important visit is yet to come. They're on the way to Lin's hometown,
00:31:10
four hours south of Saigon in the Mekong Delta. Trau Vin is where Lin and her family live.
00:31:17
There, the coffee shop. This is our house. And that is the coffee shop. And because of Facebook, some of the faces are familiar to Jim and Jerry.
00:31:27
Hi. How are you? They're ushered inside the proud life's work of Lynn and her family,
00:31:37
a neighborhood coffee shop where everyone does know your name. But Lynn seems much more eager to show off something else, a framed photo of her mother.
00:31:47
Oh, very pretty. This is the necklace that I bought Tanti. Nu then gives them a tour of their home upstairs.
00:32:08
This is my room. Me and my mother sleep here. This is where you listen to music.
00:32:15
Yes. Lin and Ki's hard work have built a remarkable life for themselves and their daughter.
00:32:21
Lin rises at 3 a.m. every day to run the coffee shop. She has come a long way since the difficult days of her childhood.
00:32:30
When she was a little kid her heart was poor They don have money to buy rice They just eat banana or potato every day
00:32:43
And it wasn't just poverty. It was all-out prejudice. The students don't like her because he's a married Asian, and they fight her and put her into the river.
00:32:55
They pushed her in the river. Jim has expressed some sadness that he wasn't here for your mom.
00:33:02
that he's been absent all these years. Should he feel sad about that? No. No? Grandpa doesn't know about a daughter in Vietnam,
00:33:14
so it's not his fault. Nu's parents' hard work has meant Nu could go to good schools,
00:33:21
schools they pay for. Nu is a star student and well-versed in American culture. The voice.
00:33:29
You like the voice. Yes. Adam DeVille? Adam Levine, yeah. Yes, I'm his fan. Jim and Jerry think Lynn and her family moving to America
00:33:40
will mean the educational opportunity of a lifetime for New, and her parents agree.
00:33:46
What do you think life in America will be like? Yes, I have a whole big family there.
00:33:55
Yes, they are all good and kind people. I will go to a new education environment and meet new people,
00:34:04
and my life will be better with them. Will you miss this place? Yes. It's so sad to say goodbye.
00:34:12
Have you been saying goodbye to your friends? Yes. We have my last day at school.
00:34:18
What was that like? Tears. Yes, full of tears. A few days later, Lynn and her family throw a big block party for Jim and Jerry, complete with karaoke.
00:34:36
In the emotional rush to meet his daughter and her family, and the rush to get permission for them to move to the U.S.,
00:34:44
Jim realizes the woman who was treated so poorly as a child is rich in friendships and connections to her community.
00:34:53
This is so overwhelming to me, that the love and the friendship that she has of all these people.
00:35:00
Before Jim and Jerry head back to Saigon, Lynn takes them on a tour of the local market.
00:35:06
She wants her neighbors to know that her American family is not a fantasy. What do you understand about love that maybe you didn't know before all this happened?
00:35:20
It doesn't have to be forced. To find out one day you've got another family of three,
00:35:28
and to find out who they are, it's just instant love. But then once more, there is sadness.
00:35:37
The time has come for Jim and Jerry to head home to America, and they still don't know when Lynn, Key, and New will be allowed to join them.
00:35:47
Jim found himself on familiar footing, a lesson he learned in the Army. how to hurry up and wait.
00:35:55
Coming up, for Michael, who set all this in motion, last-minute jitters. You know, they were happy, and then they come here.
00:36:04
Are we going to be as good as they need? And for Lynn and her family, coming to America.
00:36:21
A few weeks after Jim and Jerry Heinz went home. Hello. We are packing our clothes to bring to the U.S.
00:36:33
Their Vietnamese family found out they had been granted permission to emigrate to America.
00:36:39
I wonder if they chickened out. Jim and Jerry greeted them when they arrived in Los Angeles.
00:36:45
It was exciting because New was the first one to come out. And here Lynn with a big smile Welcome to America I can just imagine she finally saying 46 years now I going to be here
00:37:02
After customs and connections, all were happily aboard Jim's pickup, headed to Yakima.
00:37:13
Ready at Jim and Jerry's is a welcoming party. and leading the charge, Michael Hines, Jim's daughter,
00:37:20
who took the DNA test that transformed the lives of two families, about to become one.
00:37:31
It's amazing. Their openness to come here and try something just completely new at this stage of their lives.
00:37:39
Michael. Lynn and her family are immediately engulfed in outstretched arms. the embrace of folks they will come to know much better.
00:37:49
My one real hope was that I didn't mess anything up for anybody. You know, their life was established and they were happy
00:37:57
and they looked like they were in a good place and then, you know, they come here.
00:38:01
Are we going to be as good as they need? Are we changing something that we shouldn't have changed?
00:38:07
For now, that's definitely not an issue. This is home. Up there? Yeah. That's your bedroom.
00:38:15
Soon they're headed inside to see where they'll live. It's the first time 17-year-old Nu will have a room of her own.
00:38:25
Check the bat out. Thank you so much. And in Lin's room, an homage to her mother, who died when Lin was just a child.
00:38:36
Welcome home. And then it's time for their first American ritual. There's hamburgers and there's hot dogs.
00:38:44
The backyard barbecue, burgers and apple pie on paper plates, stories and s'mores, a rite of welcome.
00:38:54
Say one, two, three, family! Family! Complete with the mandatory cousins picture with new as the beaming edition.
00:39:04
What did you think of the whole party last night? Just read. And we took the cousin photo.
00:39:11
Yeah. Yeah, with cousins. and everyone's so good, so sweet. Nu is off to enroll at the local high school the next morning.
00:39:23
Normal is coming at Lin and her family as fast as they can take it in. And we're going to do registering, right?
00:39:30
All right, are you ready? Yeah. All right. You've spent your whole life dreaming about coming to America.
00:39:37
What is it like to finally be here? She's finally come back home and got the love of her parents and good care of sisters.
00:39:58
Really happy. Jim has dreams that Linh and her family might want to take over his small but growing cattle herd.
00:40:07
So your new Vietnam family is going to become cowboys. They're going to become cowboys.
00:40:11
We've watched this man immerse himself in the effort to connect with and then bring Lynn home.
00:40:18
Through smiles and tears, he has been steadfast, never wavering, and he has a message for other veterans like him.
00:40:27
Anybody, any guy that believes he might have a child over there, they aren't wanting to come here to get rich.
00:40:36
They just want to be with family, just to step up and take a DNA test. If Jim was once haunted by a long-ago war, he is no longer, now that his family is whole.
00:40:49
To have all my girls and all my grandkids here, and celebrating Lynn and Kian, who's welcoming home party,
00:40:56
it was just, it was beautiful. Watching everybody smile and giggle is priceless.
00:41:06
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thank you for joining us.