Review of Last Days in Vietnam (2014) by Robert S — 03 Oct 2014

Saw this last night. Being a Vietnam vet who was last there in 1971, four years before the fall of Saigon, I had some catching up to do on those years of the war. I had thought that America had simply abandoned the Vietnamese after our last combat troops left in 1973, but I was heartened to find that we didn't. Ambassador Martin refused to accept the reality than the end was near and wouldn't even allow an evacuation plan to be drawn up to save the high-risk Vietnamese from the NVA, but a secret plan was hatched by the U.S. military, CIA, contractors, and the Vietnamese navy anyway that got 77 thousand out in just two days. There were lots of heroes of that evacuation and this fabulous documentary justly lauds them all.

Another important historical fact I learned was Nixon wrote a letter to President Thieu, after the Paris Peace Accord was signed, promising to come to South Vietnam's aid if the NVA invaded. But Watergate intervened and he resigned before that happened and Ford couldn't get the anti-war Congress to keep Nixon's promise.