🪖 Juan José Valdez was the last U.S. Marine to leave Vietnam 🇻🇳 — literally the final American off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975 🗓️, dangling by his fingertips from a helicopter ramp 🚁 before a fellow Marine pulled him to safety 🤝.
🌵 He was a son of Mexican immigrants 🇲🇽 from San Antonio who gave 32 years to the Marine Corps 🎖️, and he spent his final years right here in Tucson 🏜️, where he died on February 15, 2026, at age 88 🕊️.
His life was a masterwork of quiet devotion 🙏 — supervising the largest helicopter evacuation in U.S. history 🚁💨, personally lowering the American flag 🇺🇸 over a war this country still won’t reckon with honestly, and keeping photos 📸 of every single one of his Marines on his mantelpiece decades later 🖼️. 💔…