They Are All My Family

They Are All My Family
Author: John P. Riordan
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1610395042

Published for the fortieth anniversary of the final days of the Vietnam War, this is the suspenseful and moving tale of how John Riordan, an assistant manager of Citibank's Saigon branch, devised a daring plan to save 106 Vietnamese from the dangers of the Communist takeover. Riordan -- who had served in the US Army after the Tet Offensive and had left the military behind for a career in international banking -- was not the type to take dramatic action, but once the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon in April 1975 and it was clear that Riordan's Vietnamese colleagues and their families would be stranded in a city teetering on total collapse, he knew he could not leave them behind. Defying the objections of his superiors and going against the official policy of the United States, Riordan went back into Saigon to save them. In fifteen harrowing trips to Saigon's airport, he maneuvered through the bureaucratic shambles, claiming that the Vietnamese were his wife and scores of children. It was a ruse that, at times, veered close to failure, yet against all odds, the improbable plan succeeded. At great risk, the Vietnamese left their lives behind to start anew in the United States, and now John is known to his grateful Vietnamese colleagues and hundreds of their American descendants as Papa. They Are All My Family is a vivid narrative of one man's ingenious strategy which transformed a time of enormous peril into a display of extraordinary courage. Reflecting on those fateful days in this account, John Riordan's modest heroism provides a striking contrast to America's ignominious retreat from the decade of conflict.

My Family, Your Family

My Family, Your Family
Author: Lisa Bullard
Publisher: Millbrook Press ™
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2015-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1467776602

Different can be great! Makayla is visiting friends in her neighborhood. She sees how each family is different. Some families have lots of children, but others have none. Some friends live with grandparents or have two dads or have parents who are divorced. How is her own family like the others? What makes each one great? This diverse cast allows readers to compare and contrast families in multiple ways.

Who's in My Family?

Who's in My Family?
Author: Robie H. Harris
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Total Pages: 40
Release: 2012-09-11
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0763636312

Nellie and her little brother Gus discuss all kinds of families during a day at the zoo and dinner at home with their relatives afterwards.

They Are All My Family

They Are All My Family
Author: John Riordan
Publisher: Public Affairs
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2015-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1610395034

In the chaotic final days of the Vietnam War in April 1975, as Americans fled and their Vietnamese allies and employees prepared for the worst, John Riordan, a young banker, the assistant manager of Citibank's Saigon branch succeeded in rescuing 106 Vietnamese. They were his 33 Vietnamese staff members and their families. Unable to secure exit papers for the employees, Citibank ordered Riordan to leave the country alone. Safe in Hong Kong, Riordan could not imagine leaving behind his employees and defied instructions from his superiors not to return to Saigon. But once he did make it back on the last commercial flight, his actions were daring and ingenious. In They Are All My Family, Riordan recounts in a vivid narrative how the escape was organized and carried out. He assembled all 106 of the Vietnamese into his villa and a neighboring one telling them to keep their locations secret. A CIA contact told him that only dependents of Americans were allowed to escape on U.S. military cargo planes. Riordan repeatedly went to the processing area and claimed groups of the Vietnamese as his relatives—his wife and children—somehow managing to get through the bureaucratic shambles. Eventually he went back and forth to the airport 15 times. Filling out papers in groups, using false documents and even witnessing a bribe, he succeeded in rescuing the group. For the last round, the group drove the bank van to the airport pretending they had bundles of money to transport. Miraculously, all these gambits worked and the Citibank group made it to Guam and the Philippines, eventually reuniting at Camp Pendleton in California. All the while, Riordan assumed he had been fired for ignoring orders but once the mission was completed, his extraordinary commitment and resourcefulness won him widespread praise from senior officials. Citibank spent over a million dollars just to resettle the Vietnamese, offering jobs to some of the staff and their spouses. Decades later, Riordan, who has stayed in touch with the Vietnamese, has located and reconnected with all of them in order to share their accounts of those frantic days and the derring-do it took to get them out to safety. John Riordan is now a farmer in Wisconsin. His story of those fateful days decades ago and their aftermath provides a compelling insight to the courage of individuals when all seemed lost. For all the tragedy of the Vietnam War, this saga is an uplifting counterpoint and a compelling piece of micro-history.

Fiction Ruined My Family

Fiction Ruined My Family
Author: Jeanne Darst
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2012-11-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1594486174

Jeanne Darst grew up in a family where their life was driven by a father who was a failed writer, and an alcoholic mother. As an adult she has pursued writing as well and examines the question of whether it is possibe to be a successful writer, sober, creative and ambititious while also having happy family life.

Because You're My Family

Because You're My Family
Author: Missy Robertson
Publisher: Freedom Island
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-03
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9781955550307

BRAVE Books partnered with Missy Robertson to write "Because You're My Family," a Christian children's book that teaches kids about the importance of family and unconditional love.

It's All Relative

It's All Relative
Author: A.J. Jacobs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2018-02-01
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1786073765

A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” And so begins A.J. Jacobs’s quest to build the biggest family tree in history. In an era of us-versus-them thinking, this book is a hilarious, heartfelt and profound exploration of what binds us all – where family begins, how far it goes, and the science that is revolutionizing the way we think about ethnicity, history and the human species. This book is about A.J. Jacobs’s family. But it’s also about your family. Because it is the same family.

Me and My Family Tree

Me and My Family Tree
Author: Joan Sweeney
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 18
Release: 2018-09-18
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1524768502

Where am I on my family tree? A beloved bestseller that shows children how to understand their place among their relatives, now refreshed with new art from Emma Trithart. Who is part of your family? How are they related to you? In this edition of Me and My Family Tree, with new art by Emma Trithart, a young girl uses simple language, her own childlike drawings, and diagrams to explain how the members of her family are related to each other and to her. Clear, colorful, detailed artwork and a fill-in family tree in the back help make the parts of the family--from siblings to grandparents to cousins--understandable to very young readers.

My Family

My Family
Author: Debbie Bailey
Publisher: Talk-About-Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1998
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781550375107

Illustrates different families and family activities.

Meet My Family!

Meet My Family!
Author: Laura Purdie Salas
Publisher: Millbrook Press
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2018
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 151242532X

Learn about wolf pups, baby orangutans, and many other baby animals in this sweet picture book featuring rhyming verse and informational text!