IMMIGRATION: The Chief’s Son

Jostling through the wintry streets of Inchon, Korea, Vincent T. Paladino, a combat-hardened Navy chief boatswain’s mate, came upon a compelling sight: a scared, forlorn waif of the Korean war, tiny, ragged and shivering in the cold harbor wind. He was Lee Kyung Soo, three years old.

That was a year ago. Chief Paladino took the youngster to his quarters, fed him and clothed him in hand-me-downs and comforted him when he woke up crying in the night. For four months the chief searched fruitlessly for Lee’s parents. Then, because “he’s no bother to me at all; he really grew on me.” Paladino, 35, and single, adopted Lee Kyung. When he got orders for reassignment in the U.S., Paladino applied for a visa for Lee, and brought his adopted son along with him.

Last week Paladino got to Honolulu with Lee, now a chunky, cheerful four-year-old in a miniature chief’s uniform, complete to hashmarks and ribbons. Immediately, Paladino found himself in a hopeless argument with U.S. immigration officials. Lee’s visa had not come through.

Application or no, the authorities ruled, the boy could not enter the U.S. without a valid visa. Lee was ordered off to a cottage at the immigration station. Chief Paladino got his own sea bag and went with him. So determined was the chief to stick with the child that he risked being AWOL from his new assignment.

While cables crackled back & forth between Washington, Honolulu and Tokyo, Lee stared at television and pored over his new comic books (his favorite: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer). After six days, the immigration ruling came: Lee had to go back to Japan, the only place where his temporary visa was good. As they boarded a Tokyo-bound plane, the boy turned trustingly to his adopted father. “You want to go,” he said. “We go.”

But the return trip was merely a detour on the long voyage back to the U.S. Only on personal application in Tokyo, immigration officials assured Paladino, could the boy get a proper visa and be admitted to the U.S. The Navy obligingly held up Chief Paladino’s Stateside orders while it flew Paladino and Lee back to Tokyo. Paladino expressed his gratitude in words without precedent in the annals of salty CPOs: “Instead of staying in the Navy 20 years, I’m going to stay in 30, just to thank them.”