The next generation: Vietnamese orphan adopted by U.S. airman made a career in the Navy

Adopted as an infant from a Da Nang orphanage, Kimberly Mitchell chose a career in the Navy; helped set up the Dixon Center to provide support services for military members, families


Kimberly Mitchell, a former Navy officer, was adopted in Vietnam by her father, James Mitchell, who served in the Air Force in Vietnam. Kimberly looks at a photo of the log book with her name and information from the Danang's Sacred Heart Orphanage in VIetnam. Kimberly returned to Vietnam to look into her past and found the orphanage she was adopted from as baby #899, Tran Thi Ngoc Bich.

Kimberly Mitchell was just 10 months old when her life was transformed by a U.S. airman serving Vietnam.

Overwhelmed by the hardship and destruction he witnessed in the southeast Asian nation, James L. Mitchell decided to visit the Sacred Heart Orphanage in the coastal city of DaNang.
The moment baby No. 899 was placed in his arms, the Kentucky native was in love.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of orphans, from babies to young children,” Mitchell said. “I was the lucky one that day.”

Mitchell, 40, was sent to the U.S. in 1972 and grew up in a loving home with the Air Force technical sergeant and his wife, Lucy, a grade-school teacher.

Her adoptive father’s military career took the family from Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico, where the couple adopted a baby boy, to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas before James Mitchell retired after 23 years of active duty and settled in northern Wisconsin.

It was there that Mitchell started to realize that she was different from other kids in her class because of her Asian heritage and her story. She also began giving serious thought to her father’s aspiration for her — that she would join the armed forces herself one day.
“My father encouraged me,” Mitchell said. “He felt that the military provides structure, education, a support network and opportunities that I wouldn’t have in Wisconsin.”

Mitchell attended the U.S. Naval Academy Preparatory School in Newport, R.I., before being accepted into the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

She was 19, excited about the world opening up to her, when tragedy struck.

A week before Mitchell was due to report to the academy, her beloved father was hit by a bolt of lightning on the family farm and killed.

She deferred her place at Annapolis for a year to look after her mother and younger brother.
While grappling with her loss, she became even more determined to honor her father’s memory by following in his footsteps.

“That was his dream, to have me, his daughter, be in the Air Force or the Navy. He wanted me to serve my country in uniform,” she said.

“I wouldn’t be in the U.S. if it weren’t for him. He and my family enabled me to live a life that I would not have had...I had to find a way to give something back to his country.”

Mitchell graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science degree in ocean engineering, and became a surface warfare officer, serving aboard naval ships off Norfolk, Va., Washington, Hawaii and Bahrain.

Like father, like daughter; Mitchell thrived in the military and made it her career.

“The structure his life had was very attractive to me, and I liked having a routine,” she explained. “Being in the Navy has offered me a lot of opportunities...It’s a life-calling career.”
Mitchell recently retired from the Navy after 17 years to set up the Dixon Center with retired U.S. Army Col. David Sutherland.

The organization aims to provide advice, information and services to military members and their families, ensuring they know where to turn in times of need.

“I had a very good support network every step of the way,” said Mitchell. “At so many points during my life, growing up as a minority, and when my father died, I realized the importance of community coming together.

“[But] military service members don’t ask for help. They’re trained not to ask for help...One of my goals is to ensure that Vietnam veterans are taken care of, as well as veterans of my generation. I want to bridge that gap.”

Mitchell, who lives in Washington, made her first trip to Vietnam last year in an effort to find out more about her past.

She visited her former orphanage, and when her story appeared in a Vietnamese magazine, a former Vietnamese soldier, now living in Albuquerque, N.M., immediately wrote to her, claiming that he had helped rescue a baby girl and delivered her to an orphanage where he gave her Mitchell’s Vietnamese name: Tran Thi Ngoc Bich.

“What are the chances of two babies being named the exact same thing around the exact same time in the same general area?” she said.

Mitchell plans to investigate his story.

Mitchell will soon be New York-bound to participate in this year’s Veterans Day Parade as chairwoman of the Vietnam Veterans Host Committee.

“I’ve heard it’s a great time,” she said. “I’m excited but deeply, deeply honored.”


cboyle@nydailynews.c om