NAmerican Veteran Searching For Twins He Abandoned In Korea
image: http://images.newseveryday.com/data/images/full/13650/missing-korean-kids.jpg?w=570
- (Photo : Posted on Facebook) James Allen Thomas and Sandia Lynn Thomas
An American soldier Allen Thomas saw his twins at a Korean airport in 1971. After that, he never saw them again, according to nbcnews.
He is still searching for them, though, more than 40 years later. The soldier is navigating through social media in order to identify his children who had been even put up for adoption after he returned to the United States.
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"I just want to see my kids and know that they are okay. I want to let them know I love them," Thomas said. "I want to share our family health history with them, because some of it is serious. I want them to know that I have never stopped trying to get them."
It was put up on a Facebook post by Thomas. He has been shared already by 1.1 million readers in a few days, but still not the two persons that he is desperately looking for---the twins. An online group has been set up to begin some leads with 25,000 members.
Thomas has posted whatever little he knows about his children. He had fraternal twins born on September 10, 1967, at Songnim Gynaecology in Seoul to Sun Kun Thomas. He also posted their birth certificates and a childhood photo of the twins. They were called James Allen Thomas and Sandia Lynn Thomas, according to pix11.
Emotionally, Thomas was unable to go into it too much. He asked his adult daughter, Charlene Roberts, to spell out the facts.
"I want the kids to see it and I want them to know he's been looking for them," Roberts told NBC News on Tuesday.
He joined the army at the age of 18 and travelled to Korea, where he met a woman who got pregnant with twins. They got James and Sandia on September 10, 1967, after which he married their mother. They planned to return to the United States. Thomas still has the documents that show that he has registered his children. However, his marriage with his wife soon "disintegrated," Roberts said.
After his Korea tour was over, he stayed on in Asia to remain close to his children. On January 1971, he took a 30-day leave and traveled from Vietnam to Korea for a visit.
"That was when he last saw his kids," Roberts said.
He went back to the US and regularly sent letters and money, but finally the lines of communication got cut off. Finally, his letters came bouncing back.
When he went back to his home in New Hampshire, he got married to a childhood friend in 1973, and adopted her two children from a previous relationship and then had another of his own.
In 1974, although his Korean wife contacted him again and offered to hand over the twins to him, he was suffering bankruptcy and could not take them, even though he appealed to the Army and Red Cross, according to a 1980 letter from the Thomases to the local congressman.
Once he managed to get financially sound he could at last receive them, but it was too late.
The couple asked for help from various sources including the Pearl S. Buck foundation that helped children abroad. In 1980, the foundation sent a letter revealing that the children had been adopted by Americans four years earlier, after Thomas left the Army, but he could not trace their address.
The Thomases continue to search for his children, registering with Korean-American bodies in which they might be registered.
"We have documentation to show that he never stopped searching for his kids," Charlene said. "But there is no trace of them."
Thomas was widowed about 10 years ago, and the retired factory worker then shifted to live with Charlene and her husband in Mossyrock, Washington, just two hours away from Seattle.
She helped him to continue searching. "It's just gut-wrenching," his daughter said. "My dad doesn't cry, but this has ripped his heart out. It's very difficult."
Thomas said to NBC news that he would understand if the children don't want to see him. "I just need to know they're OK and tell them I love them. These are my kids, and I've never stopped loving them," he said.
Read more at http://www.newseveryday.com/articles/15891/20150507/ex-army-man-searching-twins-left-behind-korea-70s.htm#PcSWJHKytzEGiyMJ.99
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