Roy P. Benavidez

Master Sergeant Raul Perez "Roy" Benavidez (August 5, 1935 – November 29, 1998) was a United States Army soldier who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions in combat near Lộc Ninh, South Vietnam on May 2, 1968, while serving as a member of the United States Army Special Forces during the Vietnam War. Roy P. Benavidez was born in Lindenau near Cuero, Texas, in DeWitt County. He is a descendant of the founders of Benavides, Texas, and was the son of a Mexican farmer, Salvador Benavidez, Jr. and a Yaqui mother, Teresa Perez. When he was two years old, his father died of tuberculosis and his mother remarried. Five years later, his mother died from tuberculosis as well. Benavidez and his younger brother Roger moved to El Campo, where their grandfather, uncle and aunt raised them along with eight cousins. Benavidez shined shoes at the local bus station, labored on farms in Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, and worked at a tire shop in El Campo. He dropped out of school at age 15, in order to work full-time to help support the family. Benavidez enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard in 1952 during the Korean War. In June 1955, he switched from the Army National Guard to Army active duty. In 1959, he married Hilaria "Lala" Coy, completed Airborne training, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Benavidez returned to Fort Bragg and began training for the elite Army Special Forces. Once qualified and accepted, he became a member of the 5th Special Forces Group; and the Studies and Observations Group (SOG). In 1965, he was sent to South Vietnam as a Special Forces advisor to an Army of the Republic of Vietnam infantry regiment. During his tour of duty, he went on a solo reconnaissance mission to gather Intel on the enemy troops. It was at this moment that he stepped on a land mine during a patrol and was evacuated to the United States. Doctors at Fort Sam Houston concluded he would never walk again and began preparing his medical discharge papers. As Benavidez noted in his MOH acceptance speech in 1981, stung by the diagnosis, as well as flag burnings and media criticism of the US military presence in Vietnam he saw on TV, he began an unsanctioned nightly training ritual in an attempt to redevelop his ability to walk. Getting out of bed at night (against doctors' orders), Benavidez would crawl using his elbows and chin to a wall near his bedside and (with the encouragement of his fellow patients, many of whom were permanently paralyzed and/or missing limbs) he would prop himself against the wall and attempt to lift himself unaided, starting by wiggling his toes, then his feet, and then eventually (after several months of excruciating practice that, by his own admission, often left him in tears) pushing himself up the wall with his ankles and legs. After over a year of hospitalization, Benavidez walked out of the hospital in July 1966, with his wife at his side, determined to return to combat in Vietnam. Despite continuing pain from his wounds, he returned to South Vietnam in January 1968. On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces patrol, which included nine Montagnard tribesmen, was surrounded by an NVA infantry battalion of about 1,000 men. Benavidez heard the radio appeal for help and boarded a helicopter to respond. Armed only with a knife, he jumped from the helicopter carrying his medical bag and ran to help the trapped patrol. Benavidez "distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions... and because of his gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men." At one point in the battle an NVA soldier accosted him and stabbed him with his bayonet. Benavidez pulled it out, drew his own knife, killed him and kept going, leaving his knife in the NVA soldier's body. He later killed two more NVA soldiers with an AK-47 while providing cover fire for the people boarding the helicopter. After the battle, he was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. As he was placed in a body bag among the other dead in body bags, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him but believed Benavidez was dead. The doctor was about to zip up the body bag when Benavidez managed to spit in his face to show that he was alive. Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six-hour fight with the enemy battalion. Benavidez was evacuated once again to Fort Sam Houston's Brooke Army Medical Center, where he eventually recovered. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism and four Purple Hearts. In 1969, he was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1972, he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he remained until retirement. In 1973, after more detailed accounts became available, Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Ralph R. Drake insisted that Benavidez receive the Medal of Honor. By then, however, the time limit on the medal had expired. An appeal to Congress resulted in an exemption for Benavidez, but the Army Decorations Board denied him an upgrade of his Distinguished Service Cross to the Medal of Honor. The Army required an eyewitness account from someone present during the action; Benavidez believed that there were no living witnesses of the events of that day, which by then had become known as "Six Hours in Hell". Unbeknownst to Benavidez, there was a living witness, who would later provide the eyewitness account necessary: Brian O'Connor, the former radioman of Benavidez's Special Forces team in Vietnam. O'Connor had been severely wounded (Benavidez had believed him dead), and he was evacuated to the United States before his superiors could fully debrief him. O'Connor had been living in the Fiji Islands when, in 1980, he was on holiday in Australia. During his holiday, O'Connor read a newspaper account of Benavidez originally from an El Campo newspaper, which had been picked up by the international press and reprinted in Australia. O'Connor immediately contacted Benavidez and submitted a ten-page report of the encounter, confirming the accounts provided by others, and serving as the necessary eyewitness. Benavidez's Distinguished Service Cross accordingly was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. On February 24, 1981, President Ronald Reagan presented Roy P. Benavidez with the Medal of Honor in the Pentagon. Reagan turned to the press and said, "If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it." Reagan then read the official award citation. In 1976, Benavidez, his wife, and their three children returned home to El Campo, Texas. He devoted his remaining years to the youth of America, speaking to them about the importance of staying in school and getting an education. His message was simple: "An education is the key to success. Bad habits and bad company will ruin you." In 1983, Benavidez told the press that the Social Security Administration planned to cut off disability payments he had been receiving since his retirement, as well as the disability payments for thousands of other veterans. He went to Capitol Hill and pleaded with the House Select Committee on Aging to abandon their plans, which they finally did. Benavidez was in demand as a speaker by United States armed forces, schools, military and civic groups, and private businesses. He also spoke in Greece, Panama, Korea, and Japan, where he visited American military personnel and even joined them on field exercises. He received complimentary letters from students, service members, and private citizens throughout the world. He wrote three autobiographical books about his life and military experience. In 1986, he published The Three Wars of Roy Benavidez, which described his struggles growing up as a poor Mexican-American orphan, his military training and combat in Vietnam, and the efforts by others to get recognition for his actions in Vietnam. Benavidez later wrote The Last Medal of Honor (Texas: Swan Publishers, 1991) with Pete Billac and Medal of Honor: A Vietnam Warrior's Story in 1995. Roy Benavidez died on November 29, 1998, at the age of 63 at Brooke Army Medical Center, having suffered respiratory failure and complications of diabetes. His body was escorted to St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church, where he had married, where his three children were married, and where he attended Mass every Sunday. His body was then returned to Fort Sam Houston's Main Chapel for a public viewing. Family friend Archbishop Patrick Flores of the Archdiocese of San Antonio presided over a Catholic funeral Mass at San Fernando Cathedral located in San Antonio. Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez was buried with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.