March 29, 1973: Two months after the signing of the Vietnam
peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops left South
Vietnam as Hanoi freed many of the remaining American
prisoners of war held in North Vietnam. America’s direct
eight-year intervention in the Vietnam War was at an end.

In Saigon, some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense civilian
employees remained behind to aid South Vietnam in
conducting what looked to be a fierce and ongoing war
with communist North Vietnam.