A battalion of the U.S. 9th Infantry Division left Saigon in the
initial withdrawal of U.S. troops. The 814 soldiers were the
first of 25,000 troops that were withdrawn in the first stage
of the U.S. disengagement from the Vietnam War.

There would be 14 more increments in the withdrawal, but
the last U.S. troops did not leave until after the Paris Peace
Accords were signed in January 1973.

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.