(NEXSTAR)— Tears fall before our interview with Stephanie Dinh even begins. "I'm about to walk into my past, so it can be tough," she said, weeping. Her journey through the past begins in her hometown: Saigon, Vietnam — a city on the brink of collapse in April 1975. Born into a deadly war, Stephanie's story takes us back to April 29, 1975. "My dad said, 'Let’s go, get ready,'" she recalled. It would lead her aboard the USS Midway during what became known as Operation Frequent Wind. The Midway became the first stop to freedom for thousands of Vietnamese refugees 50 years ago, after news broke that Saigon was about to fall to the communist North. Stephanie was 15 years old when her father, a colonel for the South Vietnamese Army, prepared her, her mother, and five siblings to flee. He swore them to secrecy. "I had three very close friends," she said. "It’s very hard for kids. Especially - you know - when you call to your friend and you want to tell them, 'Yeah, I might never see you again.'" On a late April morning, with only the clothes on their backs, it was time. A convoy of buses arrived to take them away. "People were screaming, running. It was total chaos," Stephanie said. "At one point I see this woman — she was screaming. She looked at me from the outside and looked up, she said, 'tell the bus driver to stop the bus, I want to get on.' I looked at her and said, 'I can’t do that.'" Stephanie’s family couldn't look back. Their freedom depended on it. They boarded a helicopter, heading for the USS Midway, stationed off the coast of Vietnam. Miraculously, thanks to the swift thinking of the Midway crew, more than 3,000 evacuees found freedom. "Every time I see the ship, I kind of relive that day when it was out there waiting for us," she said. Stephanie went on to build a successful life in America. Though she never forgets Vietnam or the Saigon she once knew, Stephanie credits Operation Frequent Wind and the courage of the Midway crew for her safe landing into a life she's forever grateful to have. "I don't look back. This is my country," she said. "I move forward, and I repay what they've given me."