They Are All My Family, John P. Riordan
They Are All My Family, John P. Riordan
List: $16.99 | Sale: $11.89
Club: $8.49

They Are All My Family
A Daring Rescue in the Chaos of Saigon's Fall

Author: John P. Riordan

Narrator: Corey M. Snow

Unabridged: 6 hr 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/29/2015


Synopsis

Published for the fortieth anniversary of the final days of the Vietnam War, this is the suspenseful and moving tale of how John P. Riordan, an assistant manager of Citibank's Saigon branch, devised a daring plan to save 106 Vietnamese from the dangers of the Communist takeover.

Riordan—who had left the military behind for a career in international banking—was not the type to take dramatic action, but once the North Vietnamese Army closed in on Saigon in April 1975 and it was clear that Riordan's Vietnamese colleagues and their families would be stranded in a city teetering on total collapse, he knew that he could not leave them behind. Defying the objections of his superiors and going against the official policy of the United States, Riordan went back into Saigon to save them.

In fifteen harrowing trips to Saigon's airport, he maneuvered through the bureaucratic shambles, claiming that the Vietnamese were his wife and scores of children. It was a ruse that, at times, veered close to failure, yet against all odds, the improbable plan succeeded.

They Are All My Family is a vivid narrative of one man's ingenious strategy that transformed a time of enormous peril into a display of extraordinary courage.

About John P. Riordan

John P. Riordan is a former vice president of Citibank. He spent more than a decade working with Citibank with a focus on the bank's branches in East Asia. John left the banking world in 1982 to focus on real estate investments and now owns and runs an environmental farm in Wisconsin next to some really big buffalo.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jimmy on May 20, 2017

What an amazing story. The author of this book tells us the true story of how he helped over a hundred South Vietnamese escaped from their country in April 1975 when the Communist North Vietnamese militarily brought about the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Again this is one incredible......more

Goodreads review by Katie on February 07, 2017

This is a harrowing tale about the last days of the Vietnam War. John Riordan was one of 3 American employees at the FSNB (now Citibank) branch in Saigon. After the bank decided to evacuate all foreign employees Riordan’s sense of loyalty made him go back to help the Vietnamese employees and their f......more

Goodreads review by Chris on October 12, 2019

I listened to the audio book and it's just okay. I have a hard time recommending this book. I was expecting a war story book and this book is not that. Instead, this book is about a banker working for FCNB in Saigon, who has past military experience and in Vietnam during the U.S. Vietnam war, who ret......more