Latvia is an NATO country so there would be more troops to deploy and faster.
No Marine or Special Forces (ex or not) would have left the American flag flying over an abandoned (and especially captured) Embassy. Yet when they escape the Embassy, the flag is clearly still flying on the flagpole.
MacGyver proposes that they use a phalanx, when what he means is a testudo. A phalanx would require spears or the equivalent.