Review of Last Days in Vietnam (2014) by Walter P — 06 May 2015

This very well done documentary opened my eyes wide to the behind the scenes of a history I never knew regarding the last weeks of the US presence in during the fall of South Vietnam. When North Vietnamese troops surrounded Saigon I was astonished how brave and relatively calm those families behaved. There were no riots, I suppose, because they still believed in the strength and power of the United States. Career US service men disobeyed orders out of their compassion and sense of moral duty (and some of those heroes paid for it) to continue to save thousands of Vietnamese lives well after the US citizens were evacuated. The somber reality of this film outshines the glitz and action of Hollywood's offerings. It is organized very well with a narrative that is informative and easy to follow.

I was surprised how emotional I felt throughout the movie, especially so in the later stages of the evacuation and then when it was finally halted; thereby, stranding many tens of thousands of brave souls hopeful of pending rescue. Suddenly they found themselves abandoned to face their unspeakably horrible fates (executions, prison, third world refugee camps, boat escapes, etc.) over the days, months and years. I appreciate how a day's worth of restraint or hesitation shown by the North Vietnamese allowed for the evacuation to proceed unimpeded. Why the victorious North Vietnamese troops didn't break the earlier agreements with the US and attack the embassy or shoot down helicopters in order to capture or kill the highest value people before they escaped, left me baffled.

This film was all the more poignant for me because I live in a city that houses the second largest Vietnamese community in the US; some are my friends with whom I have discussed their Black April experiences.