Air Force Col. Bruce Hollywood had just arrived to work at the Pentagon when he suffered a heart attack and fell to the ground. As he was rushed to Walter Reed Army Hospital and thought he was going to die, two regrets came into his head. One was that he would not be able to help his son apply for college, and the other was that he never got to thank the Japanese woman who gave birth to him, then gave him up for adoption in 1960.

Hollywood was adopted by an American family that was stationed in Japan, and they gave him a great life!

It was this 2005 heart attack that inspired Hollywood to find his birth mother, something his adoptive mother, who had passed away, had repeatedly encouraged him to do. Before that, he had never thought much about his adoption.

“I always knew I was adopted because I had Asian features and [my father] was an Irishman and [my mother] was a Norwegian lady,” said Hollywood, 57. “And they always told me, ‘…We picked you out special. So you’re even more special than everyone else.’ ”

Though his parents told him his birth mother’s family name and offered to pay for a flight to Japan for him, he declined the invitation. After his heart attack, however, Hollywood set out on his search for his birth mother. He wanted to tell her, “I lived the best life ever. I’m a colonel in the United States Air Force. I’ve got beautiful children. Life is really good.”

Hollywood went to the Japanese Embassy to try and find her, but they had no information on his birth mother. When a private detective could not find her either, Hollywood began to give up.

“And I thought, ‘You know what, I’ve tried. I’ve made all the effort that I can make. It’s just unfortunate,’ ” Hollywood said.

Finally, Hollywood found someone at the Japanese Embassy who was able to find her! He remembers the day he got the phone call that she had been found.

“’Colonel Hollywood we’re really pleased to tell you that we found your mother, Nobue Ouchi,’ ” Hollywood recalled. “And I said, ‘Oh my gosh, this is wonderful. You’ve got to help me start writing this letter. And I want it to be accurate, and I want it to be culturally sensitive. And you’ve got to help me.’”

The caller told him, “There’s not going to be a letter. She’s going to call you at this phone number in 10 minutes, and she doesn’t speak English. Good luck!”

Hollywood rushed to find an interpreter, and when his mother finally called, she was crying. He asked the interpreter what his mother was saying

“And she said, ‘Well, tomorrow is your mother’s 65th birthday, and the birthday present that she dreamed of her whole life is that you would come back to her,’” Hollywood said. The interpreter added that his mother never got married “because she said in her heart there was only room for one man. And it was you, and she knew you would be back.”

Hollywood was stunned to learn that his mother ran her own restaurant called “Bruce,” which she named after him!

“And I thought, ‘This is either the most incredible story I’ve ever heard or this woman is crazy, and these things aren’t true,’ ” Hollywood said.

Ten days later, Hollywood flew to his mother’s home in Shizuoka, Japan to meet her. Since then, the two have remained close and Hollywood has gotten in touch with his Japanese heritage.

“The last 12 years, I finally became a Japanese American. Before that I had no Japanese American identity. I just had Japanese American features. … But as I got integrated in this community, I ended up becoming incredibly proud of this heritage that I had,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you if I didn’t live it, I almost wouldn’t believe it.”

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