ROSEMARY TAYLOR: Rosemary was a former school teacher from Australia who first traveled to Vietnam in 1967 as an educational social worker.  Upon witnessing the suffering and dying of so many orphans of war, Rosemary returned permanently to oversee Friends For All Children, a privately-funded nurseries and orphanages throughout South Vietnam in which she could administer acute care for abandoned children and eventually help them find loving homes around the world.  Rosemary ran FFAC with her childhood friend and colleague, Margaret Moses, who came to Vietnam as Rosemary's request and tragically perished aboard the ill-fated first government-sponsored flight of Operation Babylift, where she was accompanying dozens of children on their journey to meet their new parents for the first time.

DENNIS 'BUD' TRAYNOR: Dennis "Bud" Traynor, then an Air Force Captain, was the Aircraft Commander of the first official Operation Babylift aircraft aboard a C-5A Galaxy. 

That ill-fated flight, intended to airlift orphaned children of US servicemen out of Vietnam during the evacuation of Saigon, suffered an on-board explosion and crashed alongside the Saigon River.  Miraculously, there were 176 survivors of the crash, most of whom are living in the US today. 

Captain Traynor was subsequently awarded the Air Force Cross, the nation's second highest military decoration.

DR. HENRY KISSINGER: Former US Secretary of State who was awarded the Nobel Peace Price for his role in helping to negotiate the withdrawal of US troops in Vietnam in what became known as the Paris Peace Accords.  However, the United States was the only country to honor the treaty and North Vietnam resumed their attack two short years later after President Richard Nixon had been forced to resign.  Dr. Kissinger worked with US and South Vietnamese diplomats to quietly coordinate the evacuation of all remaining US personnel in Saigon, but the political climate quickly unraveled and with pressure from humanitarian groups worldwide, he was forced to make arrangements for the evacuation of thousands of South Vietnamese orphans as well.  Because of his role in Babylift, Dr. Kissinger was named in a class-action lawsuit (which was later dismissed), which claimed that the babies adopted through Babylift were kidnapped and taken against the will of their families.