Unable to return, he spent the next few decades trying to find them.

His search ended yesterday when he was reunited with Tay Nguyen, the woman he loved and lost so long ago, and their two children, Hoang Nguyen and his sister Yen Nguyen.

Bateman and Tay Nguyen shared a long embrace as they met at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where Bateman had just arrived from his home in Hillsborough, N.C. Bateman then hugged the 31-year-old son he last saw as an 18-month-old toddler, and the 30-year-old daughter he'd never seen.

The family that he left in Vietnam so long ago had been living in Everett for 10 years.

His children, in turn, showed him their own children.

"I just can't describe it," Bateman said in an unsteady voice. "It's just too much."

Bateman, now 53, met Tay Nguyen, 50, in 1967 while serving as a soldier in the Vietnam War. He was 19 and she was 17.

"And we fell in love and had two kids," Bateman said.

Bateman kept extending his tour of duty to stay in Vietnam with Tay and even re-enlisted after being sent back to the United States. But by 1971 he had run out of ways to stay there and was sent back home for good.

The couple tried to stay in touch, but by 1975 the country had been taken over by the Communists and the two lost touch. Bateman said he tried to find out about what happened to Tay Nguyen and their two children and even wanted to have them sent to America, but "you were fighting two governments at that time."

He eventually got married and had two other children, but he never forgot his family from Vietnam.

Meanwhile, back in Vietnam, life wasn't easy for the Nguyens. Being half American made the children frequent targets of persecution. They often were told to go back to their own country and got in fights whenever they went to school, Hoang Nguyen said.

But the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1987 paved the way for them to come to America. They arrived in New York in 1990 after spending a year at a school in the Philippines.

After living in New York for a few months, the Nguyens took a four-day bus ride to Seattle. But they always wondered about Bateman.

They started looking for him once they got to America but were struggling with the English language and misspelled Bateman's name, telling people they were looking for Carey "Batman," Tay Nguyen said.

"I've been searching for him for 10 years," Hoang Nguyen said while waiting for Bateman to arrive yesterday. "I really want to see him. I want to see what he looks like."

Bateman suffered his own setbacks. He went to Vietnam to find them in 1994, not knowing they were already in America, and was told by people there that they might be dead.

Then in 1999 he saw a newspaper article about another Vietnamese woman who had been Tay Nguyen's best friend. Linda Barron, 50, and Tay Nguyen were roommates in Vietnam, but were separated when Barron married an American soldier and left with him in 1970.

Bateman and Barron got together last May and, working together with the American Red Cross, which helps reunite people separated by war and natural disasters, they eventually got in touch with the Nguyens, who were also making progress in their own search.

By February they had one other's addresses.

"What was ironic about it was they found me about two days before I found them," Bateman said.

Yesterday was also Barron's first time seeing her friend since leaving Vietnam.

"After 30 years this is a miracle," Barron said as she and Tay Nguyen exchanged hugs and smiles. "I'm very happy that her and her kids are OK."

The reunited friends, father and children say they will spend the next few days catching up. Standing with his long-lost father in the airport's baggage claim area, Hoang Nguyen said he felt "really happy."

By Bernard McGhee
The Associated Press/ The Seattle times