Some years ago, while still on active duty, I had the pleasure —let me rephrase that— I was given the honor to meet and speak with Roy Benavidez. He was at a Non-Commissioned Officers Association get-together and was a guest speaker. His speech about what he had done and how he viewed his actions was inspiring. He never once revered himself a hero. He always commented that the real heroes were those that didn’t make it back, those that gave their lives for their buddy, their mission, and their country. He was humble and gracious with every word he spoke. His story is what legends are made of, and he is referred to as “The Legend” by many that have heard of his ordeal.
After his speech, I was able to speak with him on a personal basis. I was a Staff Sergeant at the time, the same rank he was in Vietnam, when his storied actions took place. We were both from Texas, and although I was 20 years younger than he, we seemed to find a commonality, a comradery that all soldiers feel for each other.
The Congressional Medal of Honor citation awarded to Roy can be found at this link, but it doesn’t tell the whole story, not in the least.
The Rest of the Story
Long before the event that led to the MoH, Roy had been terribly wounded when he stepped on a mine while acting as an advisor to a Vietnamese Infantry unit. Medevac’d to the Philippines, Roy woke up in the hospital paralyzed from the waist down. The medical staff had declared him unable to ever walk again. After being transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Roy slowly recovered and waited for his medical discharge papers. His career was over.
During those nine months of waiting for medical discharge and release from the U.S. Army, Roy secretly worked on his own to walk again. He would crawl at night after the medical staff had made their rounds and try to get his broken body to work again. Sometimes the nurses caught him, put him back in bed, and told the doctors in the morning that, “Roy was at it again last night.”
At the end of the nine months, the medical discharge papers were ready. The doctor walked into his hospital room and was met with Roy saying, “Doctor, look what I can do!” The doctor said, “Sergeant, I’m sorry. Even if you can stand up, you’ll never be able to walk.”
Roy jumped out of bed and stood up before him. The doctor said, “Benavidez, if you walk out of this room, I’ll tear these papers up.” Roy walked out of that ward with a limp and went back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
He started therapy again, running 5-10 miles a day, doing 50-100 pushups. Subsequently, he made three parachute jumps in one day. He was ready to go back to Vietnam, both physically and mentally.
Vietnam
This is where the story of Roy Benavidez and his incredible will to fight and save his team is awe-inspiring.
Roy was assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group Airborne, First Special Forces at Loc Ninh. On 22 May 1968, Roy was attending religious services when the call came over the radio. The call was unmistakably desperate.
“Get us out of here! For God’s sake, get us out!” The twelve-man Special Forces Recon Team was in heavy contact with a North Vietnamese Army (NVA) regiment west of Loc Ninh. Three helicopters had already attempted a rescue but were unable to pick up the team due to immense small-arms and anti-aircraft fire. SSG Roy Benavidez, without orders or command, grabbed a medical bag. Armed only with a knife, he jumped into a Huey helicopter that was going in to attempt another rescue.
When the helo arrived on station, the enemy fire was so thick in the area that the helo could not land. With the helo hovering at about 10 feet, Benavidez leaped off the chopper into the thick grass. The team was about 75 yards away. As soon as Benavidez hit the ground he began running through enemy fire when an AK-47 round pierced his right leg, and he fell. He quickly got back to his feet but was almost immediately slammed back to the ground when a hand grenade explosion tore open his neck and back.
SSG Benavidez fought back. He got back up yet again and ran through the relentless enemy fire to the trapped 12-man squad. Once he reached their position, he found four of the men dead and eight others all severely wounded. Roy first started passing out ammo to those able to fight, while he treated those he could. He used the morphine ampules he had with him and collected those from the fallen to use on those that were still alive but injured.
He then called in air strikes to support the hunkered men. He was hit yet again. Although in extreme pain from his wounds and covered with blood, he began dragging the dead and injured men to the helo that was hovering overhead, all the time providing cover fire with an assault rifle he had picked up from the ground. As the chopper moved closer to recover even more bodies, the enemy fire increased and focused on the rescue helicopter.
Roy then returned to where he found the downed soldiers to retrieve and secure the classified documents, radio codes, and call signals still on the body of the dead team leader. Roy was hit again as he collected the materials. This time Roy took a round in the stomach and additional shrapnel fragments in his back. Roy was starting to cough up blood as he made his way to the waiting chopper. Before he could reach the rescue helo, the pilot received a fatal wound and the rescue helicopter, with the injured already loaded, crashed.
SSG Benavidez moved to the downed chopper which was overturned and pulled the wounded out and placed them in the best protective perimeter he could. He called in more airstrikes and directed the fire from helicopter gunships to support the team until another rescue helo could again attempt to extract them. Roy made his way around the defensive perimeter and continued to rally injured soldiers to fight on.
As the downed team waited for the next rescue attempt, Roy was again wounded several more times. Roy pushed the injured to stay in the fight and assured them they would get out. As the chopper arrived, Roy threw a wounded soldier over his shoulder and made his way toward it.
Before he reached the waiting rescue helo, an enemy soldier who was hiding in the tall grass hit Roy from behind with his rifle butt, striking the side of his jaw. Roy and the wounded soldier he was carrying were knocked to the ground. The hand-to-hand combat battle continued, and Roy was bayoneted in both arms. Even with these and all the other wounds he had received, Benavidez grabbed the bayonet with his hand to stop the attack, severely slicing it in the process. Holding on for all he had, he pulled out his own knife and killed the enemy soldier.
His jaw shattered, both arms slashed and bleeding, a slashed hand, numerous bullet wounds and multiple pieces of shrapnel in his body, Roy helped the last injured man onto the Huey. That soldier was the team’s Vietnamese interpreter. Now with the rescued soldiers inside the helicopter, the ones that could still move pulled Roy up inside. He no longer had the strength to get himself into the helo.
As the chopper left and headed back to safety, the blood spilling out of the wounded ran out the bay door of the helo as it flew. It was a twenty-minute flight back to the base at Loc Ninh. SSG Roy Benavidez was laying on the floor of the helo holding his own intestines in his hands during the flight back to base.
At Loc Ninh, the wounded were triaged as they were removed. SSG Roy Benavidez was pronounced dead. Just as the doctor started to zip-close the body bag, Benavidez, gathering the very last ounce of fight, spat in the doctor’s face. He was alive, and they immediately rushed him into the hospital in an attempt to save his life.
When all was said and done, Roy was on the ground, wounded, fighting, and saving his fellow soldiers for six hours. His story is one of the most unbelievable tales of courage, stamina and the will to fight that has ever been told. During those six hours, Roy was wounded thirty-seven times.
Roy reached the rank of Master Sergeant by the time he retired from active duty in 1976. Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez died on 29 November 1998 at the age of 63. He was buried with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, in Section A1, Grave 553.
Below is a list of Roy’s medals and awards:
Medal of Honor
Purple Heart with 4 Oak Leaf Clusters (5 awards)
Meritorious Service Medal
Army Commendation Medal
Army Good Conduct Medal with 2 Silver Loops (7 awards)
Army of Occupation Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
Vietnam Service Medal with 4 Bronze Stars
Korea Defense Service Medal
Humanitarian Service Medal
Army Service Ribbon
United Nations Service Medal
Vietnam Campaign Medal
Presidential Unit Citation
Army Meritorious Unit Citation
Vietnam Gallantry Cross Unit Citation
Vietnam Civil Actions Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge
Master Parachutist Badge
Army Special Forces Tab
I will never forget meeting him. It was a pivotal moment in my own service. He was humble, approachable, gracious and all he always said when asked why he felt he had to do what he did was: “It was my duty.”
