War Veteran Loses Contact With Kids. What His Wife Did Next Is Terrifying! | HO

Some stories are so deeply woven into the fabric of family that they span continents, decades, and the unyielding boundaries of heartbreak. For Alan Thomas, a war veteran from New Hampshire, the story of losing contact with his children was one that haunted him for more than forty years—a tale of love, loss, and the terrifying choices made when hope seems out of reach.

The First Goodbye

Alan Thomas never imagined he’d be typing a desperate plea into a Facebook status box at the age of seventy. He sat in a quiet corner of his daughter’s home in Washington State, his hand trembling over the mouse. “Please help me find my twins. I haven’t seen them in over 40 years,” he wrote, attaching faded photos of two toddlers, James and Sandra, taken in Korea before everything changed.

Their birth certificates, old adoption documents—anything that might help—were added to the post. Alan had written those words a dozen times before, but this time, he hit “post.” He leaned back, exhaled, and closed his eyes, not knowing those few words would ignite a search spanning the globe.

But to understand the magnitude of Alan’s plea, you have to travel back nearly five decades, to a time when the world was younger and so was he.

Seoul, 1966: Young Love in a Divided Land

Alan was just nineteen, a small-town kid deployed to South Korea, working on helicopters near the tense demilitarized zone. Seoul was a city alive with neon lights and the promise of adventure. Amidst the bustle, Alan met Pungqu—a woman five years his senior, with a son from a previous relationship and a quiet strength that drew him in. He called her Connie. Their romance was swift, genuine, and intense. Within a year, they were living together, and soon, Connie was pregnant.

On September 10, 1967, she gave birth to twins: James and Sandra. Alan was there in the hospital, holding his newborns, feeling the pride and joy of a young man who’d found a family in the most unexpected of places. He married Connie a year later, formally adopting her son JM, and dreamed of bringing them all home to the United States.

Red Tape and Broken Promises

But bureaucracy had other plans. Only James and Sandra, Alan’s biological children, were eligible for U.S. passports. Connie and JM were denied visas. Connie was adamant—if she couldn’t go, none of the children would. Alan pleaded, promising to send for her later, but she refused. He returned to America alone, promising it was only temporary.

Back in New Hampshire, Alan sent money, wrote letters, and tried everything to cut through the red tape. But immigration laws were unforgiving. Desperate, he volunteered for a dangerous tour in Vietnam just to be closer. In 1971, he secured leave and returned to South Korea, hoping for a new beginning.

Instead, he found the warmth between them had faded. Connie accused him of infidelity. The visit was short and painful. Still, Alan held his children, kissed them, and said goodbye at the airport—never knowing it would be the last time he’d see them as children.

The Silence Grows

Alan tried to make things right, but the letters slowed and eventually stopped. In 1973, with no word from Connie and no legal way to bring the kids to the U.S., Alan filed for divorce. He remarried a year later to Paulie Pacwin, a childhood friend with two children of her own. Then, in 1974, a letter arrived from Connie.

She offered to send James and Sandra to him if he came to get them. It should have been a joyful moment, but Alan had just filed for bankruptcy. He appealed to the Army, the Red Cross, anyone who could help with travel expenses. Nothing came through. He wrote back to Connie. No reply. That was the last he ever heard from her.

What Alan didn’t know—what would terrify any parent—was the decision Connie made in the shadows of heartbreak. In 1976, believing it was the best chance for her children, she put the twins up for adoption. Without Alan’s knowledge or consent, James and Sandra were sent to the United States, their names changed, their lives severed from the only father they’d ever known.

Lost in the System

For Alan, the trail went cold. He wrote to Korean-American support groups and international aid agencies. One day, the letters started coming back unopened, no forwarding address, no explanation. “I was caught between two worlds,” Alan would later say. “They were adopted under Korean law. Now, all of a sudden, they got the American law. Well, okay. Where are my rights? I was told I had no rights.”

Through the 1980s, Alan tried everything—the U.S. State Department, local congressmen, and organizations like the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, which assisted mixed-race children adopted from Asia. The foundation eventually sent him a letter: the twins had been adopted by American families in 1976. They were safe, but the law prohibited any further information. Alan was crushed.

He lived his life as best he could—raising Paulie’s children, having another child with her, working in factories. But he never forgot James and Sandra. Every September 10th, he mentioned their birthday. Every Christmas, he wondered where they were. Decades passed. Paulie died in the mid-2000s. Alan, now retired, moved in with his daughter Charlene in Washington. One night, he told her he wanted to try again.

The Search Rekindled

Charlene offered to help. They posted in forums. Nothing. Then, in 2015, they tried something new: Facebook. The post went viral—over a million shares, comments, and leads from around the world. Someone at ABC News noticed. They reached out, offering help.

ABC brought in investigative genealogist Pamela Slayton and tapped into their Seoul news bureau. Slayton started digging, but hundreds of adoptions from South Korea in the 1970s made the search daunting. The twins’ names had long since changed. Birth dates alone weren’t enough.

Then came a breakthrough: a police detective in Seoul named Keon Sulie reached out. He specialized in missing children cases and had seen Alan’s story online. He connected with Slayton and made contact with someone critical—JM, the boy Alan had adopted all those years ago. Now grown, JM agreed to help, working with Korean adoption agencies to release records sealed for decades. Inside those records were the names of the American families who had adopted James and Sandra.

James had grown up as Timothy James Parker, a long-haul trucker in Missouri. Sandra was now Susan Williams, a married mother of two in Wisconsin. Slayton made contact. Phone calls were arranged. Voices once silent for half a lifetime were heard again.

The Reunion

ABC’s “20/20” offered to bring them together in person for the first time since 1971. Alan stood on a studio stage in New York, his eyes glistening. He heard footsteps on the stairs. Then two adults appeared, smiling, crying, and embracing the man who had never stopped loving them.

“I just can’t believe you’re my actual father,” said Timothy.

“I’ve been looking for a long time,” Alan whispered.

Susan looked at him with a mix of disbelief and emotion that mirrored his own. “I’ve wondered about you my whole life,” she said softly. “I didn’t even know your name until now.”

Alan pulled back just enough to see her face. “You were never forgotten. Not a day went by that I didn’t think of you both.”

There was no anger, no accusations—only the overwhelming emotion of discovery, of filling in a blank space that had defined their lives.

Healing and Moving Forward

After the cameras stopped rolling, the three spent the rest of the day together in a quiet room away from the lights. They shared photos, memories, and stories from the lives they’d lived apart. Susan brought pictures of her children—Alan smiled at them, struck by the realization that he had grandchildren, real ones with smiles and freckles and stories of their own.

Alan told them about their birthdays, how every September 10th he would pause and wonder what they were doing, whether they were safe, whether they were loved. He told them about the moment Connie offered to send them back in 1974, and how devastated he was that he couldn’t make the trip. He told them about the letters that came back unopened and how the last one he wrote had no one left to read it.

And then he said something that made Susan’s eyes well up again. “I never blamed your mother,” he said. “I didn’t understand at the time, but maybe she thought she was giving you a better chance. And I can’t be angry with that. I just wish I could have told her to wait. I would have come.”

For Timothy and Susan, there was healing in those words. They had grown up with loving families, but carried unanswered questions like puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit. Now they had the answers. Even if the circumstances weren’t perfect, they had a father. They had history. And most importantly, they had each other.

The Legacy of Love

In the weeks that followed, Alan kept in close touch with both of his children. He and Susan scheduled a visit for later that year. Timothy started calling Alan during long drives. There were still things to learn, decades of experiences to catch up on, but there was no rush.

One afternoon, Alan sat on the back porch, holding a small frame in his hands. Inside were two pictures—one from the past, one from the present. On the left, the original photo of the twins as toddlers. On the right, a new photo of Alan standing between Timothy and Susan at the reunion, all smiling, arms wrapped around each other.

“I used to wonder if I’d ever see them again,” he said. “Now I don’t have to wonder anymore.”

Alan’s story isn’t just one of loss and recovery. It’s about the enduring bond of family, the pain of separation, and the power of hope. It’s about a war veteran who served his country, faced heartbreak, started over, and still kept the door open in his heart for the children he once carried through the streets of Seoul. In the end, it was that quiet, unshakable love that brought them back.