John McCarney, U.S. Air Force

Veterans Chronicles

John McCarney joined the U.S. Air Force shortly after deciding he'd had enough of college football. He trained to be a medical corpsman and was by late 1974 was on his way to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines. Upon arriving he was stunned to learn he was assigned to the obstetrics ward of the hospital.
It was just a few months later that President Gerald Ford authorized Operation Babylift, which was designed to rescue mixed-race babies and other children out of South Vietnam as the communist North Vietnamese neared Saigon.
In this edition of "Veterans Chronicles," McCarney shares how he came to love his work but felt intense survivor's guilt when he was not on the the first Operation Babylift plane that tragically crashed shortly after takeoff. He also explains the moments that finally helped him ease that guilt and take pride in his service.