"It's hard to hear among the gunfire....But even the softest whisper can be heard when it tells the truth."
from Sydney Pollack movie, "The Interpreter" (2005)

ADOPTEES' WAR MEMORIAL

Introduction

While AmFOR supports all American troops, this page is dedicated to American Adoptees and Parents who have died in war, and to all Orphans and Adoptees created by war. Some of their stories and photos are featured here.

Adoption activist, Mary L. Foess, commented "How ironical it is that the government is falsifying our identity permanently (no one can find out who we are!), yet is so concerned about fake identities/passports of Middle East people or others!" Mary is founder and president of Bonding by Blood Unlimited, Vassar MI - southpaw45hye@yahoo.com.

AmFOR, voluntary international human rights network for children and families, joined the worldwide protests against war on Iraq. Dropping of bombs on Iraq (1) not only killed innocent Iraqi men, women and children, as well as our own troops, as "collateral damage", but also (2) distracted from the HRC finally able to go public with USA child trafficking abuses, adoption fraud and coercion (see United Nation's advance report, below, and at top of http://AmFor.net) and (3) among those killed in action in current and past wars are American adoptees who were not permitted to know their own nor their family's identities and origins, yet dutifully sacrificed their lives for this country.

Abruzzo and Rodriguez

DISCOVERY BRINGS TWO HEARTS REST
Medic Finds Birth Mom in Tucson
Arizona Daily Star, by Carol Ann Alaimo (11-13-04)
www.dailystar.com/dailystar/ relatedarticles/47989.php

After surviving a war of blood and bullets in Iraq, adoptee Paul Rodriguez finally has found the peace that eluded him all his life. .... the Navy medic from California flew to Tucson and realized his most fervent wish: to meet his birth mother.

.....Abruzzo, a West Side resident, long ago gave up hope of ever meeting the son she bore 29 years ago in New York City, where old adoption records are tightly sealed. Rodriguez said his adoptive parents in New York are loving people who gave him a good life. But he still yearned to meet his birth mother. He began actively searching when he returned from Iraq in mid-September. Surrounded by death as he treated U.S. troops overseas, Rodriguez, a Navy corpsman based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., said war made him realize life is too short to put off his quest. ....For Rodriguez, the reunion was a chance to thank his mom for giving him life, and to ask her the one-word question many adoptees have: Why? ....For Abruzzo, it was a chance to reassure her son that giving him away was a devastating choice made out of love and concern for his welfare. "I was always afraid. " Rodriguez began, his voice choking and trailing off. "That I didn't love you?" his mother asked. Yes," he replied. "I was afraid you might reject me, and I didn't know how I would handle it if that happened."

....[After the adoption] "I went to bed and huddled under the covers. I cried and cried for about six months," she recalled. ....As a youngster, he rode the New York City subway and studied the faces of female passengers one by one, wondering which might be his birth mother. When he was 12, he ran up a $500 phone bill making long-distance calls to strangers in an effort to find her. ...."I always had this void in my heart," he said. Fearing that his own mom didn't love him made it hard to trust women when he grew up and started having relationships....

"So many of those guys over there, as they're dying, they call out for their mothers. I've seen it, so I know," Barkman said of combat troops overseas. "Who knows if he could get sent back there," he said of Rodriguez. "The least he deserves is to know who his mother is."

[AmFOR Note: Although the full article says several people offered him various types of assistance at no charge, Paul Rodriguez says he was charged $300 for the search that actually located his mother. AmFOR has never charged search fees and, after reading this, provided Paul Rodriguez with leads to his father & a sisters, without fee, but theres been no further word whether he completed his searches or was sent back to Iraq.]

---

Rintamaki

LYNWOOD MARINE KILLED IN IRAQ - 21-YEAR OLD MET HIS BIRTH PARENTS FOR FIRST TIME BEFORE SHIPPING OUT
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, by Mike Barber (9-20-04)
seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/ 191549_marinekilled20.html

Shortly before he left for Iraq three months ago, 21-year old Marine Cpl. Steven Rintamaki of Lynwood met his birth parents for the first time and was welcomed into a seemingly vast extended family.

....The soldier's long-lost brothers and sisters were as thrilled to discover him as they were to find them. The plans they were hatching to grow old together, however, will instead be embodied in a memorial scholarship Myra Rintamaki [his adopter] plans to create.

---

Ryan P. Jones

SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQ

by Marisa Donelan, Sentinel and Enterprise (05-05-07)

WESTMINSTER, MA: "...She didn't want to hear the news that her son, 1st Lt. Ryan P. Jones, 23, has been killed in a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad.

...Kevin Jones, a postal worker, and Elaine Jones, a homemaker, adopted their son at the age of three months.

He had some health problems, including serious asthma, that he overcame as he got older, his parents said.

"If you saw him when he was first adopted, it was like, oh, what a kid," Kevin Jones said, laughing. "He was cross-eyed, he had a funny-looking little face. But he grew out of it all ... You didn't meet Ryan without falling in love with him."

His mother said she can't remember a time when the boy got himself into trouble.

Calling him "Saint Ryan," Elaine Jones said her son was also deeply religious at a young age, in Catholic Church services at Gardner's Holy Spirit parish.

"At one point, I thought he might even become a priest," she said.

His parents remember a day when their son unexpectedly brought a new member to their family, while sitting in the church pew.

"There was an older woman who would sit at the front of the church, and one day when he was about six or seven, Ryan turned to her and asked, 'Will you be my grammy?' And she said yes," Elaine Jones. "Ryan had never met his grandparents."

The woman, Germaine Lavoie, now 97, of Gardner, took on the role and has stuck by the family ever since, Elaine Jones said."

---

Phillips

MARINE LANCE CPL JAMES R. PHILLIPS, 21

from Detroit News, DetNews.com

While Steven L. Phillips was fighting in Afghanistan, his adoptive parents helped their son track down his birth parents. "We knew he needed this," said his adoptive mother, Paulette Phillips. The Phillipses helped organize a family reunion for Christmas 2004, when Steven was home on leave, with his birth parents and all of his stepbrothers and half sisters. "This has been very, very difficult for them to handle the loss," she said, "when they'd just found him again." Phillips, 27, of Chesapeake, Va., died Feb. 7 when the Humvee he was driving overturned and crushed him.

---

Sherwood Baker

FIRST TEAMSTER KILLED IN IRAQ...
"MY SON WAS BETRAYED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION"
Written & Distributed by concerned members of Teamsters 705

Sherwood Baker's adoptive parents Alfred and Celeste Zapala, veteran peace activists, spoke to the independent radio program Democracy Now about the death of their son and against policies of the Bush administration on May 8....

"My son was betrayed by the Bush Administartion... I think that the big difference is that it took years to find out the lies in Vietnam. We discovered the lies in less than a year... He was everbody's son and I cannot, cannot and will not, stop trying to speak the truth and get other people to speak the truth."

Excerpted from DemocracyNow.org 8-22-05:

SHERWOOD BAKER, Pennsylvania National Guard Reservist, was killed in Iraq in 2004. His adoptive brother, Dante Zappala said Sherwood Baker was 13 months old; he was 'abandoned' by his 'birth' parents. And my parents decided to take him in as their child. A year later, I was born, and two years after that, my younger brother was born. And that's how a family was made. Sherwood was always a very big kid. He stood up for what was right. He always protected me. And I certainly needed it. He had a child when he was young. He was 21 years old, he was still in college. And he was never going to let what happened to him as a young child, the uncertainty and the unpredictability, he was never going to let that happen to his kid. And so he became the most amazing father. He was such a role model for me and for his child.

---

Rayshawn Johnson

PROMISES KEPT - DIANA HERBERT & RAYSHAWN JOHNSON -
AMERICANS YOU SHOULD KNOW - (8-9-04)
www.blackfive.net/main/2004/08/ promises_kept_d.html

Diana Herbert grew up in the New York Foster Care System with her two brothers, Rayshawn and Michael Johnson. Rayshawn, the eldest of the children, enlisted in the US Army as a Combat Engineer. Rayshawn had found a new family - the military. Here's a few excerpts from stories about him:

Her brother had spoken with her about how the Army had changed his life and how it could change hers. It would be a change that would take her from the foster family system in New York that she, Johnson, and their younger brother, Michael Johnson, had known for years.

"When he returned to the neighborhood, he refused to come out of his greens," his aunt, Rosalyn Winter, told mourners at his funeral. "He wanted everyone to know this was a foster child who became a member of another family. The U.S. Army made a man of him.

The military changed Pfc. Rayshawn Johnson, on the inside and on the outside.

"He used to dress like he was born on the street, but when he came back, he was in his uniform," said his brother, Michael Johnson, 16. "He called once at the airport and he said the respect he got from people made him feel so good," his foster mother, Deborah Wynter, recalled. "He said they were coming up to him and saying God bless you, Good luck, Were proud of you."

Rayshawn asked his sister and brother, when they were old enough, to serve their country. They promised that they would...

---

Jeffrey F. Braun

JEFFREY F. BRAUN
CBS News
www.cbsnews.com/elements/2000/07/16/ iraq/whoswho563618_0_43_person.shtml

Stafford, CT: Pfc. Jeffrey Braun was adopted by an American family, but he dreamed of starting an orphanage in Honduras, where he was born.

"Jeff always had a plan, a purpose," said the Rev. Richard Forcier, Braun's family priest. "He had a dream to give back."

The 19-year-old from Stafford, Conn., died Dec. 12, 2003, of a non-hostile gunshot wound in Baghdad. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C.

As a teenager, Braun's hairstyles changed often, friends said. He enlisted in the Army shortly after graduating from high school, where he was a multi-sport athlete and member of the choir.

"My brother was never afraid to try new things while everyone stood aside and just watched him," Julie Braun wrote in a letter that was read at the soldier's funeral. "Everyone could feel the warmth of his personality," she wrote.

His parents, William and Meredith Braun, and his sister say they are continuing his work to start an orphanage.

---

Edward Brabazon

BENSALEM FAMILY GRIEVES FOR SON
Philadelphia Inquirer, by Dwayne Campbell (3-12-04)
www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/8167075.htm?1c

As gently as they could, the soldiers told the Brabazons on Tuesday that their son, Army Spec. Edward W. Brabazon, [20], was killed [by a non-hostile, non-combat gunshot wound] while serving in Iraq....

The Bensalem couple adopted Brabazon when he was 12; he had lived with them since he was 3, and he became the third Edward in the family. He was one of several children the couple adopted or fostered, and he bore the first name of his adoptive father and the couple's biological son.

---

Farida

FIRST CONTACT IN 22 YEARS
(Iraqi Adoptee Finds Brother)

Few people in Iraq have not suffered tragic consequences of the series of wars. For Farida [last name kept confidential], it all began in 1981 when her family was forced to go to Iran. She remained in Iraq with no news from her relatives for 22 years.

....[Farida]: "One weekend my parents had sent me to my grandmother in Basra. They were never able to come and get me. I never saw my father, my mother or my three brothers again."

Farida's grendmther had no resources and had to place her granddaughter with a foster family. Her adoptive parents were terrorized with the thought that they were sheltering someone "politically incorrect." Farida spent most of her time hidden inside.

"Everyone, my neighbors, the people around me, even my adoptive family, told me never to try to contact my family. Some of them held high government positions and were very afraid of reprisals just because they frequented me...."

Just as Bagdad was under full attack by the coalition forces, she learned that a friend of her family was in the capital. She risked her life to go to Baghdad....crossed the military roadblocks and finally found this most fortunate contact who gave her the phone number of one of her brothers in Iran....She heard her brother's voice for the first time in more than twenty years. [The ICRC and the Iraqi Red Crescent regularly allows families separated by the war to make free two-minute calls with satellite phones.]

---

Iraqi Orphan

THE ORPHANS of TALL AFAR
NEWSWEEK, March 28, 2005 by Owen Matthew (excerpted)
www.msnbc.msn.com/id7245228/site/newsweek
More photos at www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7784.htm

On January 18, 2005, U.S. soldiers shot at a speeding car, mistaking it for a suicide bomber attack. In 15 seconds, the Hassans, parents of the civilian family were killed, and their five children, ages 2-14, were instantly orphaned.

---

UNMASKED WAR AGAINST IRAQI CHILDREN
by Ghali Hassan, 8-4-04 (excerpt)
www.countercurrents.org/Iraq-hassan040804.htm

....Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive."

"This is precisely what the United States government did, with malice aforethought"

---

Orphan Siblings

Targeting Arab Children/The Slaughter of Iraqi Children (2):
by Ron David (excerpted)
rondavid.net/deadchildren2.htm

A few years ago there was a case in New York that was so appalling that it captured the attention of the entire country. It involved a New York lawyer named Joel Steinberg, his battered live-in girlfriend, and a child, a little girl [whom they illegally adopted] named Lisa.... Even though Joel Steinberg had kept her locked in a dungeon-like room and starved and abused her to death, she had that trusting look on her face even as she lay like a dead elf in a coffin..... If there is any truly unforgivable act, it is the torture and killing of children. If someone did to your child what Joel Steinberg did to little Lisa ?

In September 1990, our government reported that Iraqi soldiers were ripping babies out of incubators and smashing their heads against walls. That really got us riled. If there is any truly unforgivable act, it is the torture and killing of children. In early 1991, President Bush dropped more bombs on Iraq than had been dropped on three continents during all of World War II. Iraq is about the size of California. But how much sympathy can you have for people who bash babies heads against walls? 368 days after the Gulf War ended, TV Guide featured a cover story titled "Fake News. The heart of the article! was a long sidebar that described in detail how the baby bashing and other atrocities that President Bush had used to whip America into a war frenzy had never happened. Those atrocities had been orchestrated by the public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton, headed by Craig Fuller, former chief of staff to George Bush. They were movies with actors, scripts and rehearsals that helped the President of the United States make a mockery of our democracy and attack the people of Iraqa people who had never hurt us in any way. They loved us and admired us until our bombs killed 200,000 of them, destroyed 20,000 Iraqi homes, leveled schools and hospitals, poisoned their water and destroyed one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East.

Even after all that, President Bush wasnt able to get rid of his old best friend, Saddam Hussein, so America continued to impose sanctions on Iraq, withholding luxuries like food and medicine. By the most conservative estimates, the sanctions America has imposed on Iraq kill some 5,000 Iraqi children every month. After ten years of our polite murder, some 750,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died from malnutrition and disease because of our sanctions.

Face this truth: our politicians, in our name, are intentionally starving thousands of Iraqi children, intentionally depriving them of medicine...intentionally KILLING them in the hope that the dead childrens parents will become so crazy with grief that they will overthrow Saddam Hussein.

And, as if that wasn't bad enough, there was the death sentence: "The price is worth it."

"The price is worth it"
Edward S. Herman

.....Turning now to the actual use of the phrase "the price is worth it," we come to U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's reply to Lesley Stahl's question on "60 Minutes" on May 12, 1996:

Stahl: "We have heard that a half a million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And--you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it."

I was curious about something. I phoned the Holocaust Museum. Oddly enough -- horribly enough -- the number of children killed by U. S. sanctions against Iraq as of 1996 when the interview took place matched almost exactly the best estimates of the number of Jewish children under the age of five killed during the Holocaust. That was the case in 1996. Now, seven years later, the number of Iraqi children killed by America's sanctions is double.

Can't you just hear one of Hitler's goons saying, "We think the price is worth it"?

....And now, do you have some idea of why people all over the world hate America. Don't kid yourself. It's not just Arabs; it's not just Muslims; it's people everywhere. Everywhere we go, whether it is dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or starving to death nearly a million Iraqi children, we tell people by our actions that America has no respect for human life.

We have so little respect for human life that we starve children to death.

---

---

Jose Gutierrez

The Death Of Lance Cpl. Gutierrez
excerpted from CBS-60 Minutes (& CBSNews.com, 8-20-03)
Correspondent Bob Simon reports.

Did you know that approximately 38,000 Americans in uniform are not American citizens - and that at least 10 men who have been killed in Iraq were not U.S. citizens?

That sounds astonishing, but in fact, it's nothing new. It's been like that in every war the United States has fought, from Valley Forge to Vietnam.

But, as 60 Minutes II first reported earlier this year, the heroism and sacrifice of non-citizens was barely known - until Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez died in battle in Iraq.

He came from Guatemala, and he came to the United States illegally....

...Jose was orphaned when he was 8 years old and became a street child....

Bruce Harris began running Guatemala's Casa Alianza orphanage - that's Covenant House in Spanish - shortly after Jose was taken there at the age of 9. ...

"He was really a survivor, and that's how he made it up to United States, because he was a survivor," says Harris. "He wasn't satisfied in trying to etch out a subsistence survival in a country like Guatemala, where more than 80 percent of the people are poor. He wanted more. He knew there was more to life than just being poor, so in 1997 Jose said he was leaving for America."

It was a 3,000-mile trail of tears by foot, by tire, and by train. It was a modern version of an underground railway, and the last leg was over the wall. But when Jose made it to the border, he got busted. He was 22 years old and the INS was going to turn him back. Saved by his baby face, Jose told the authorities he was only 16. Minors don't get turned back, so he was allowed to stay in America and get a green card.

His pilgrimage continued through a series of foster homes - one after another. But, once again, he got lucky. He wound up in Torrance, Calif., with Nora and Marcello Mosquera, both Latin American immigrants. They not only took him in, they loved him and called him their son. [informally adopted him.]

"You find children that, when they encounter so many problems in their early childhood, they either go the right path or the wrong path," says Mosquera. "Either they make things stronger. A fight or a soldier to get ahead, and become someone in life. Or they go down the wrong road. I think with Jose, all his experiences made him stronger. A stronger person. A fighter. A leader." ...

... Are young Hispanic men who go up to the United States looking for future, for education? Are they being sent to the front because they're dispensable?" Harris believes that Guatemalans now view Jose as both a victim and a hero. ... Jose and the nine other green card holders who died in Iraq have prompted a number of congressional proposals that would make it quicker and easier for non-citizens to become Americans when they join the military.

---

Several weeks after 60 Minutes II first broadcast this story, the U.S. military revealed the cause of Gutierrez's death. It was not from Iraqi guns, but friendly fire, from his fellow Americans.

---

The Mosquera family plans to establish a scholarship fund in the memory of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez. Scholarships will be set up at Los Angeles Harbor College, North High School, and Wendy's Kids, an organization for foster kids in Los Angeles.

Please send an email to josesfamily@yahoo.com for more information.

---

Rachel K. Bosveld

PFC Rachel K. Bosveld, 19 - killed in Iraq 0-23-03

She was from Waupun, WI. She was assigned to 527th Military Police Company, V Corps, Giessen, Germany. She was killed during a mortar attack on a police station in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. Adopted as a baby, Rachel is survived by her father Marvin, brother Craig, step-brother Aaron Krebs, adoptive mother Mary Bosveld and other relatives including a female cousin who served during the Vietnam War. (Excerpted from www.nooniefortin.com/iraq.htm)

---

Caleb Powers

LANCE CORPORAL CALEB POWERS, 21

USMC, killed by enemy fire in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.... two weeks before his tour was up. Powers, who at 7 was cared for by the Virginia-based children's group until farming relatives in Mansfield adopted him five years later, was a virtual poster boy for the non-profit organization that helps abandoned children. A resilient kid who appreciated where he had come from, Powers hoped to save his combat pay to one day buy a ranch in Mansfield. He dreamed of one day giving back to the organization that helped him by helping other children, such as the ones who swarmed over him when he visited, said Jay Cooper, a retired film-industry executive and former director of Variety Children's Charities in Beverly Hills, Calif., who had come to know Powers. ....From a youngster with attention-deficit disorder who had nearly nothing in childhood, Powers eventually came to have almost everything. .... As a child, Powers' own words about his life were recorded in "Silence Broken," a book about Child Help USA, the organization begun in the 1950s to help displaced Japanese children, but which expanded to help other youth. (from The Seattle Post Intelligencer )

---

Binh Le

MARINE CPL BINH LE, 21

Was killed 12-3-04 while manning a checkpoint when a car bomb exploded. Le was born in South Vietnam. He came to the United States when he was 6 years old and grew up with an adopted family. However, he still kept in contact with his parents in Vietnam. "We're very proud. He served the country. He's a first-generation here. I know he loved his job and he would do what he wanted to do. So our family is very proud of him," Le's adopted father, Luong La, said. Le's relatives here say they're trying to make sure his biological parents can come to Arlington National Cemetery for his funeral. (Excerpted from Seattle Times, SeattleTimes.com and ArlingtonCemetary.net/_bnle.htm)

---

Christopher J. VanDerHorn

STAFF SGT. CHRISTOPHER VANDERHORN, 37

Died when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee in Sinia as he was patrolling, the Department of Defense said... Bob Vanderhorn and his wife, Nancy, adopted Christopher Vanderhorn when he was 3 months old. He grew up in Beaux Arts Village, a small town near Bellevue, Wash. Bob Vanderhorn said his son was "talkative, opinionated and caring as someone described it, kind of a hard head with a very soft heart." Nancy Vanderhorn said her son "always wanted to be a hero" so it came as no surprise when he went into the military. (Excerpted from 1-3-06 post at USAToday.com)

---

Fred Pokorney

NEVADAN KILLED IN IRAQ LAID TO REST AT ARLINGTON
Las Vegas Review-Journal, by Samantha Young (4-15-03)
Review-Journal.com

Standing by the casket of her father, the little girl turned to her mother and said "Where's my daddy?"

Kneeling beside her, the widow of 1st Lt. Fred Pokorney Jr, raised her head, picked up her daughter and said her final goodbye to the U.S. Marine from Tonopah killed in Iraq.

He planned to make a career out of the military, according to his adoptive father, former Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieske.

---

Richard Penny Jr.

THE SEARCH
Son's Decade Long Quest Ends in the Rubble
New York Times, by Nina Bernstein (10-25-01)

In 1987 when nearly 40, [Richard Penny Sr.] learned he had been adopted, that his [birth] father was Jewish, his [birth] mother an African-American acquaintance of the family. He angrily confronted his adoptive mother who died soon afterward...The family never heard from him again.

...His trail resurfaced in August 1996. The father who was sleeping at the shelter told a caseworker that he wanted to establish "normal family relations" with his son, then 28; [the elder Penny noted] "Lost communication; must track him down." But he never figured out how.

For years, Richard Penny Jr. searched for the father whose name he bears.

After a decade lost in a netherland of homeless shelters and work programs, Richard Penny, 53, made it to a ranted room and a steady job. But the job was for the World Trade Center Recycling Project and when terrorists struck Sept. 11, he was collecting paper on an upper floor of the North Tower.

---

Ronnie and Charity Bowers

BUSH EXPRESSES SORROW for AMERICANS KILLED in PERU CRASH
Associated Press, by Ron Fornier (4-21-01)

...The U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, said the surveillance plane had been monitoring Peru's aircraft which mistook the missionaries for drug smugglers.

Missionary Veronica "Ronnie" Bowers, 35, and her 7-month old adopted daughter, Charity, were both killed...

Their single engine plane was downed by the Peruvian Air Force. A U.S. surveillance plane was involved.

---

Excerpted from:
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs
Overseas Citizens Services, Office of Children Issues
International Adoption - Iraq
travel.state.gov/adoption_iraq.html

The Department of State has received many inquiries from American citizens concerned about the plight of the children of Iraq and wondering about the possibility of adoption. At this time, it is not possible to adopt Iraqi children, for several reasons.

In general, adoptions are private civil legal matters governed by the laws of the nation where the child resides. The process involves complex foreign and U.S. legal requirements. There is no adoption under Iraqi law, only guardianship, which the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security (formerly the INS) and the Board of Immigration Appeals have deemed insufficient for the purposes of immigration under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Iraqi law has not permitted foreigners to obtain legal guardianship of Iraqi children. The Department of State does not know at this time whether Iraqi nationals living abroad may obtain legal guardianship of Iraqi orphans.

Moreover, in a crisis situation, such as the Iraqi people are experiencing at the present time, it can be extremely difficult to determine whether children whose parents are missing are truly orphans.

	In Memory of David Brandhorst, Adoptee and all who perished, September 11, 2001
"Adoption is a form of domestic terrorism." -Reverend Ruth Peterson

Ronald Gamboa, pictured with his adopted son, David Brandhorst [who, along with Gamboa's male partner, Daniel Brandhorst] were victims of United Flight 175 terrorist hijacking-crash attack into World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Will young David's mother ever be told?

---

The following is excerpted from LATimes.com and Newsday.com, September 13, 2001
"AMERICA UNDER ATTACK: Profiles of the Victims - September 11, 2001"

Daniel Brandhorst, 42, lived in a home perched on the lip of a canyon in the Hollywood Hills with his partner Ronald Gamboa and their adopted 3-year-old son. They were returning from a vacation in Boston and Cape Cod. The couple had been together for 14 years. Brandhorst was the serious one, the lawyer and accountant, the man who dreamed of becoming a professor. Gamboa, 33, was the happy-go-lucky one, the beloved manager of a Gap store in Santa Monica, the family man with a glint of mischievousness in his eye and an ever-ready arsenal of jokes. If Gamboa's sister or friend said "Isn't that cute" about a puppy or "Isn't that beautiful" about a sunset, Gamboa would retort: "What am I?"

Both had moved from small towns--Brandhorst from Liverpool, N.Y., Gamboa from Anchorage, Ky.-- to New York City, where they met. They moved to Los Angeles a few years later when Brandhorst was transferred to another office of his company, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. They loved to travel around the world, hang out with a close group of friends and visit family. They lavished attention on the blue-eyed 3-year-old they adopted as an infant and named after Daniel's brother David. Relatives said that the two men had been looking for another child to adopt.

---

AmFOR NOTE: Unfortunately, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks, the gay media has been using gay victims of the terrorist attacks as a sounding board for their issues. In the case of Gamboa and Brandhorst, gay media is using them as a "poster family" example of how gay families are "no different" than "birth" families. This is AmFOR's rebuttal to that.

AmFOR is not against freedom of sexual orientation. AmFOR is against exploitation of adoption and adoptees to further gay issues-- or any other special interests such as pro-life and pro-choice groups. Adoption is an abnormal status -- in heterosexual adoptions as well as in gay/lesbian adoptions -- because adoption tries to re-create the "birth" family which adoption has dismembered and they are not interchangeable.

Often gay partners will hire a surrogate, just as lesbian partners will pay for donor insemination, so that at least one of them is the biological parent. The child and surrogate, or donor, may or may not become part of each other's lives. Still, an adoption occurs, and there is the problem of the falsified birth certificate and whether or not there will be contact between the surrogate or donor and the child. As it was reported in media that Gamboa and Brandhorst "had been looking for another child to adopt," evidently neither were biological parents of young David. Today's adoptions, including gay/lesbian adoptions are more often created to fill the needs of adopters who cannot otherwise have children, instead of filling the needs of a child.. A child's greatest need is to not be separated from "birth" parents who have not been declared "unfit," nor to be given away to strangers who are simply more "economically privileged" and thereby feel an entitlement to another's child.

---

DKELLUPS@aol.com wrote:

Daniel Brandhorst was my brother. This is to inform you that his adopted sons birth mother has been told. As a matter of fact, she was involved in all the memorials and is constantly informed of any developments. And yes, they were looking for another child to adopt. As in Davids case they were dealing with young women who were drug addicted or had other personal issues that prevented them from raising a child. So, I suppose I am just asking you to let them all rest in peace. Thank you,

-Denise A.Kelly

Dear Ms. Kelly,

Thank you for the update. I'm very sorry for your loss, as we are sorry for every loss on Sept. 11. My own son and his wife (both adoptees)were in Boston at the time and would have flown home via NYC but, unknown to me, had decided to drive instead. I went through 24 hours of pure hell til I knew they were okay. So no disrespect of the deceased is intended by this "Adoptee War Casualty" page. Media told only one side of your brother's and David's story, and the gay media then capitalized on the tragedy to exploit gay issues--whereas I advocate for children--which is what I am saying on this web page.

Your brother was evidently a very kind, well-liked and loving person, by all accounts, but the adoption system by which he was given entitlement to David does not necessarily look after "child's best interests" and most relinquishing mothers are never told their children's fate. Many children have been known to suffer abuse in their adoptive placements and have died as result--but it's not discovered until it's too late. Examples are at my web page, Death By Adoption, amfor.net/chosenchildren/death.html

There are many mothers who are losing their children to adoption only for economic reasons.... and some whose children may not have died, had the children not been taken from them or had the children at least been placed with more accountability than the adoption system is set up to provide.

That this boy's allegedly drug addicted mother was told her child perished [Note: Received an email from someone else stating this was an "open adoption"] doesn't justify the child's fate any more than your brother's death is justified. But your brother chose to travel a lot whereas the child had no choice.

Who can say whether the boy most likely would not have been on that plane had he and his family been helped or a more equitable form of substitute custody been an option. But we do know that the adoption system serves the needs of people who want children and who can afford to pay adoption fees, rather serving the needs of children. I'm not blaming adopters--I'm blaming a bad child welfare system. Adoption plays "russian roulette" with children's lives.

---

AmFOR also received an unsigned e-mail with a return e-mail address indicating "K. Andrews," an "adoptiveparent@------." Andrews alleged that the Brandhorst adoption was an "open" adoption--as such placements often are. While the e-mail lauded the benefits of "open" adoption to all parties, the sender presumed to "speak for" the mother who I have not heard from nor seen quoted in media--as is often the case with pro-adoption commentary. While all relinquishing mothers intially are given a false sense of security that adoption will provide a "better life" for their children -- which no baby broker can predict nor guarantee-- the bottom line is that this child, David Brandhorst, is dead.

---

People & Events: Operation Babylift (1975)
from PBS "American Experience"
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ daughter/peopleevents/e_babylift.html

A U.S government plan to transport Vietnamese orphans out of their war-torn country began in disaster. The very first flight to leave Saigon, on April 4, 1975, crashed several minutes after takeoff, killing 138 people, most of whom were Vietnamese children. Critics in Washington questioned the Ford administration's political motivations. Others criticized the government for assuming that the children would be better off in America. But perhaps most disturbing was that many of the children were not orphans at all.

During the final days of the Vietnam War, the U.S. government began boarding Vietnamese children onto military transport planes bound for adoption by American, Canadian, European and Australian families. Over the next several weeks, Operation Babylift brought more than 3300 children out of Vietnam. As the Communists advanced into South Vietnam, rumors about what they would do were rampant. Many South Vietnamese were desperate to escape. Children fathered by American soldiers were rumored to be in particular danger. Heidi Bub's birth mother, Mai Thi Kim, feared that her daughter would "be soaked with gasoline and be burnt." For a mother desperate to protect her mixed race child in the face of an advancing enemy, a chance to send the child to America was a ray of hope.

From the start, Americans debated the Babylift's purpose, execution and justification. American Ambassador to Vietnam Graham Martin claimed that the evacuation "would help reverse the current of American public opinion to the advantage of the Republic of Vietnam." President Gerald Ford made use of the photo opportunity, standing before television cameras on the tarmac at San Francisco airport to meet a plane full of infants and children. Bay Area attorney Tom Miller, who would become involved in litigation over the Babylift, called it "one of the last desperate attempts to get sympathy for the war." A Congressional investigation suggested that there was "a total lack of planning by federal and private agencies." Newspaper headlines asked, "Babylift or babysnatch?" and "The Orphans: Saved or Lost?" And a Vietnamese orphan character appeared in the satirical "Doonesbury" cartoons of G. B. Trudeau.

Some Americans asked whether fear made it right to take children from their homeland. A Vietnamese American journalist, Tran Tuong Nhu, wondered, "What is this terror Americans feel that my people will devour children?" Some felt that guilt may have been a motivation. Relief agencies in Vietnam were accused of being "Saigon's baby business." The New York Times quoted a Yale psychologist, Dr. Edward Zigler, who said: "We've been ripping [the children of the airlift] right out of their culture, their community... it's some kind of emotional jag we are on."

There were some Americans who welcomed the Babylift, including American aid workers in South Vietnam. Sister Susan McDonald cared for 100 infants at a Saigon orphanage. As the North Vietnamese moved closer to the city, living conditions worsened. Food was in very short supply, and gasoline was so expensive that McDonald would buy it by the quart. The orphanage depended on supplies from overseas, and when these -- including food -- were no longer forthcoming, the children's lives were at risk. McDonald had been looking for a flight to move the children in her care to safety, but commercial flights had ceased. When the military invited her to participate in Operation Babylift, she gratefully accepted. On April 26, 1975, McDonald boarded a plane with 200 Vietnamese children and 14 caretakers. The plane stopped in the Philippines to get the sickest children to a hospital, and after more than a week in a refugee camp, the rest of the children continued their journey in a seated cargo plane. The babies were placed in small cardboard boxes lined with blankets. The two hundred children landed in Seattle at the end of a long and strange journey.

Tran Tuong Nhu, one of a small number of Vietnamese Americans living in the Bay Area at the time, volunteered to assist with Babylift arrivals in San Francisco's Presidio. She and the other volunteers were surprised to hear children talking about their living family members. Many of the children did not appear to be orphans at all.

Nhu, Miller, and others approached the federal government and adoption agencies with their concerns about the situation. When they received no response, they contacted the Center for Constitutional Rights and filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the federal government, and the adoption agencies.

In Vietnam, poor families would sometimes place children in orphanages if they could not feed them. But in such cases, parents did not intend to give them up, and would often visit their children. Many parents, especially of Amerasians, were concerned about their children's safety. In some cases, parents put their children on a Babylift plane, and later left Vietnam themselves as refugees, with the intention of finding their children later. "Many of [the adoption records] lacked the consents from the parents," said Miller. When Mai Thi Kim brought her daughter Hiep (Heidi Bub) to the Holt Adoption Agency in Danang, she was given no papers whatsoever.

A worker with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Saigon, Bobby Nofflet, recalled the tumultuous days of Babylift: "There were large sheaves of papers and batches of babies.

Who knew which belonged to which?" The Babylift lawsuit argued that many of the children in the airlift were not orphans, had been given up under duress during wartime, and that the U.S. government had an obligation to return them to their families. Attorney Tom Miller said that he brought Vietnamese birth parents into the courtroom to plead for their children, but to no avail. Judge Spencer Williams eventually threw out the Babylift case, declaring it to be 2,000 separate cases, and not a class action suit. "He sealed the records, and told us we could not contact any of the Vietnamese families and let them know where their children were," said Miller.

Only in cases where parents had found their children independently could Miller's group represent them. Eventually only twelve children were reunited with their Vietnamese parents, but only after many years and lawsuits. Many children were caught in court battles between their birth parents and their adoptive parents. For a number of Babylift adoptees, finding their birth parents is essentially impossible, because no records exist. In recent years, many have established connections with each other based on their shared experiences.

---

Angelina Jolie

ANGELINA JOLIE ADOPTION ODDS: USA and IRAQ

from HecklerSpray.com (3-27-07)

So far Angelina Jolie has adopted a boy from Cambodia, a girl from Ethiopia, a boy from Vietnam and a girl that she technically gave birth to but then legally divorced and adopted. But is adopting four children enough for Angelina Jolie? Never. Here are today's Angelina Jolie [tongue in cheek] "adoption betting odds" - for the USA and Iraq ...

USA - It goes without saying that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have ruffled a few feathers in their home country by adopting children from everywhere apart from America, so here's their chance to make amends. There's one problem with Angelina Jolie adopting an American baby, though - she's already got an American kid. True, this one wasn't adopted...but she still counts.... Current Angelina Jolie adoption betting odds - 25/1

IRAQ - Angelina Jolie has always been very political in her movie-making. She made that film about Daniel Pearl; The Good Shepherd clearly reflected the current international security crisis...But surely Angelina Jolie's greatest-ever political move would be to adopt an orphan whsoe parents were killed by American bombs in Iraq. Current Angelina Jolie adoption betting odds - 20/1

[AmFOR Note: On the serious side, Iraq's officials estimate there are THOUSANDS of young war orphans. Under Islamic Law, orphans are considered "damaged," adoption is difficult, and their relatives are hard to find due to separation by war.]

---

KINDRED ORGANIZATIONS WAR BABES - Founded by Shirley McGlade, 15 Plough Avenue, South Woodgate, Birmingham B32 3TQ She is the daughter of a World War II GI, that she traced in 1986. http://freespace.virgin.net/j.munro/warbabes.htm THE ASSOCIATION OF LIBERATION CHILDREN, founded in 1984, renders assistance to the Dutch descendants of soldiers from the Second World War in the search for their biological father and/or relatives. It also has links with Canada. http://www.liberationchildren.org PROJECT ROOTS is an organization set up in 1980 to help find the Canadian fathers of British and European War Children http://www.project-roots.com/ TRACE (Transatlantic Children's Enterprise) - Search Guide: http://freespace.virgin.net/j.munro/Searchng.htm REGISTRY OF JEWISH HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/registry/intro RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS: Tracing Ancestors http://www.judymeschel.com/coshtrace.htm