NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) – Fifty years after the last American troops left the battle-scarred land of Vietnam, the war’s legacy is still evolving in the form of a new connection between a 71-year-old Marine veteran in New York City and a father and son in Norfolk.
When Eddie Sheehan retraces this recent journey in his mind, he shakes his head.
“I can’t believe this,” Sheehan said. “This is like a dream.”
The Vietnam War was more like a nightmare. In 1973, when the last American troops left, 58,220 of them didn’t make the trip home.
Sheehan left behind his carefree youth in Queens, enlisting in the Marines at age 19.
“I graduated school in June. I volunteered for the Marine Corps, and I was in there in September.”
Sheehan rattles off the sequence of his final moments of youth molded into the realization of adult military service.
“Vietnam, Danang, Sacred Heart Orphanage,” Sheehan said. “I been there.”
Sacred Heart Orphanage was a Catholic facility outside Danang. Many of the children were fathered by American servicemen. These Amerasians were shunned by Vietnamese society. The orphanage was the only home they knew; it was also a weekend escape for the young private first-class from New York.
“I’ll never forget it, just like it was yesterday, and I always loved children,” Sheehan said. “So yeah, let me go over there and help these kids out. It’s an off day, Sunday. Let’s go over there and see what this is about.”
For Kirk Kellerhals, Sacred Heart was his home during that same time. His birth father was an American servicemember. Kellerhals was adopted by a U.S. Army major, raised a family in Norfolk, and co-founded the non-profit Sea2C Foundation to reconnect orphans with their American birthparents.
“My son was born well after the Vietnam, so from an historical standpoint, he didn’t know anything about it other than what I told him,” Kellerhals said.
As Lucas Kellerhals was finishing his senior year at Lake Taylor High School, back in New York, Eddie Sheehan came across a magazine article about Sacred Heart Orphanage, and the Sea2C Foundation. His thick Queens accent erupted into excitement retelling his discovery.
“I called my daughter, my friends, anybody I could think of. I said ‘You’ll never believe this!’ They said ‘Eddie, that’s some story you got there,’ I said, ‘Well it gets better. I went to dinner with the guy!'”
A new connection forged in New York City. Sheehan met Kellerhals for dinner in the Big Apple. At just under two years old, Kellerhals was too young to remember Eddie Sheehan, but Sheehan remembered Sacred Heart, and the innocent face that longed for attention.
So Eddie Sheehan made the trip to Norfolk to see Lucas Kellerhals graduate from Lake Taylor.
After another brief reunion in Kellerhals’ Ocean View driveway, the conversation commenced from the dining room table. Pictures and clippings layered over the dark wood.
Reconnecting veterans to the lost children of the Vietnam war is now Kellerhals’ passion.
“We’re proof of the positive of what can come out of a horrible situation, because you look at the Vietnam war and everything that’s attached to it, for decades had nothing positive to attach to it.”
But this attachment is about humanity – a 19-year-old Marine visiting children during a time of war and division, later finding peace connecting with the next generation. Kellerhals’ son Lucas, who is considering serving in the Coast Guard, quietly acknowledges a simple lesson from this unlikely connection. “Anything can happen. Nothing’s impossible.”
The memories of Sheehan’s 20-month tour of Vietnam are tempered by those weekends with forgotten children at Sacred Heart, which have built a legacy that transcends generations.
“I’m amazed that so many different cultures can come together and become family. That’s wonderful. It’s like a new hobby. I’m going to continue to follow through with the foundation, and the friendship and the people.”
It’s how the healing continues, one generation at a time.