The defining moment in the life of Roy Benavidez came on May 2, 1968. The thirty-two-year-old Army staff sergeant was stationed at a remote post in South Vietnam, roughly eighty miles north of Saigon. At about two o’clock in the afternoon, he was huddled in a prayer group around the hood of a jeep when he saw two men running through the camp. Alarmed, Roy hustled to a nearby communications tent where he and a handful of servicemen gathered around a radio receiver. Over the static, they could make out the sound of rapid gunfire and men screaming in distress. A covert reconnaissance mission somewhere out in the surrounding jungle was going terribly wrong.1
Roy rushed to the airstrip, where he saw a “badly shot up” helicopter returning from a failed attempt to rescue the reconnaissance team. Moments later, another chopper came hurtling over the treetops, thumping onto the helipad in a rushed landing. The second helicopter was pierced by so many bullets that Roy “didn’t see how it could fly.” Twenty-year-old Michael Craig, a door gunner in the second chopper, had been shot in the chest. Roy and others pulled Craig from the aircraft and set him on the ground. Roy cradled the wounded man as they waited for medics. Craig was losing breath and struggling to speak. He managed to utter, “Oh, my God, my mother and father,” before dying in Roy’s arms.2
In 1968, Roy Benavidez was on his second tour of duty in Vietnam. He was a career military man, a “triple-volunteer” as it was known, meaning he had volunteered for the Army, Airborne, and Special Forces. Roy had first joined the Texas National Guard in 1952 and the United States Army in 1955. He had served across the globe, having previously been stationed in South Korea, Germany, Panama, Honduras, and Ecuador.3
Roy’s first tour in Vietnam began in 1965 and lasted just over four months before he was nearly killed by some type of land mine. After a remarkable recovery, he returned in 1968 as a member of the elite Army unit known as the Green Berets. Standing only five feet eight and weighing less than 170 pounds, Roy was not physically imposing to the untrained eye, but as a member of the Green Berets, he belonged to one of the most lethal fighting forces in the world. And now he was part of a secretive mission code-named “Daniel Boone,” an operation described by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as an “on-the-ground means of determining location and size of enemy organizations in sanctuary in Cambodia,” a place where American soldiers were not officially supposed to be operating at that point in the Vietnam War.4
For years, the American military brass had been deeply concerned about enemy troops and supplies infiltrating South Vietnam from Cambodia. This was a legitimate problem for the American mission in Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops stored munitions and food in rural areas just across the border, knowing full well that United States forces couldn’t interrupt their activities in the noncombatant nation of Cambodia. The communist forces could launch attacks into South Vietnam and then safely retreat back across the border to regroup.5
By December of 1967, communist operations in Cambodia had become such a problem that General William Westmoreland, the American military commander in Vietnam, requested seventy-two hours of “high intensity” B-52 tactical airstrikes on suspected enemy positions. This request was denied because of domestic and international concerns. The presidential administration of Lyndon B. Johnson was deeply worried that news of American action in Cambodia could cause domestic political turmoil or even trigger a military response from Russia or China. If the United States were to enter Cambodia, it would need a very good reason.6
Meanwhile, Cambodian officials refused to acknowledge that communist forces were operating in their country. American diplomats made overtures to members of the international community, but teams of inspectors from Canada and India couldn’t find evidence of a significant communist presence. North Vietnamese soldiers were indeed operating in Cambodia, but most of their activities took place in rural, isolated stretches of the jungle that were inaccessible to foreign diplomats. The United States military needed more evidence if it was to justify military intervention into Cambodia.7
Operation Daniel Boone was conceived in 1966 to gather such evidence. Orchestrated by a branch of the military known as Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), Daniel Boone was a series of top-secret missions involving the insertion of twelve-man units over the border, or “across the fence” as servicemen often called the operations, to study and observe enemy movements in Cambodia.8
As was their aim, these special units saw the enemy often. At the end of 1968, a Department of Defense memo reported that more than 80 percent of these reconnaissance missions encountered enemy forces. Over 50 percent required “emergency extraction” due to close contact with the enemy. It was extraordinarily dangerous work. “When the choppers took off to take team members on some mission,” Roy Benavidez recalled, “you never knew if you’d see them again.”9
On one of Roy’s first missions that spring, his unit began taking “some pretty heavy gunfire” and called for extraction. When the rescue helicopter arrived, Roy attached himself and a wounded soldier to a nylon harness known as a “McGuire rig,” a secure rope dropped from choppers during urgent extractions. As the rescue craft flew off with Roy dangling below, the McGuire rig began twisting so uncontrollably that the ropes started rubbing together. The friction began to fray the harness, threatening to sever the only lifeline holding the men hundreds of feet above the jungle floor below. As bullets chased the helicopter into the sky, a soldier named Leroy Wright leaned out from the main cabin to disentangle the line, saving Roy and the other man from plummeting to the earth. The other man later succumbed to his wounds, but Roy survived. He later described Leroy Wright as a “real angel” who had saved his life.10
On May 2, 1968, Leroy Wright was the leader of the reconnaissance team stranded in the jungle. “I felt my heart sink,” Roy recalled of learning about Wright’s squad. “Those were my brothers.” And so when another extraction helicopter prepared to take off, Roy rushed to the airstrip and jumped onboard, desperate to help his compatriots who were hopelessly surrounded by hundreds of North Vietnamese soldiers somewhere out in the Cambodian wilderness.11
After arriving at the scene, Roy jumped from the helicopter and sprinted across a clearing filled with gunfire to reach the trapped unit. He was shot numerous times, but he made his way to the survivors and managed to help them organize a defensive perimeter while treating the wounded men’s injuries and calling in supporting aircraft strikes over the radio. After roughly six hours of intensive combat, another helicopter was finally able to reach the clearing and extract the men. Roy was the last American to leave the field alive. All told, Roy saved the lives of at least eight soldiers while incurring more than thirty puncture wounds to all parts of his body that left him hospitalized for nearly a year and disabled for the rest of his life.12
Roy Benavidez never again saw combat, but he remained in the military until September of 1976, when he was forced to medically retire. By the time he was honorably discharged, Roy had earned the Parachutist Badge, two Good Conduct Medals, a National Defense Service Medal, an Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, four Overseas Service Bars, a Vietnam Service Medal, a Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal, a Combat Infantryman Badge, Vietnam Jump Wings, an Army Commendation Medal, a Badge with Rifle Bar, four Purple Hearts, and a Distinguished Service Cross. Because of the secrecy of his May 2 mission, however, it would take thirteen years for the full details of his most heroic actions to become known to the public. Only then would Roy emerge as a major national hero. In December of 1980, after over six years of lobbying, Roy Benavidez was approved for the Medal of Honor, the highest decoration in the American military. He received the award from President Ronald Reagan at the Pentagon on February 24, 1981.13
After receiving the Medal of Honor, Roy Benavidez became an American military legend who lived out the rest of his days as a national hero. For the final seventeen years of his life, he was America’s most recent living recipient of the Medal of Honor. He became an icon of military pride and patriotism at a time when the United States armed forces were trying to restore their image in the wake of the Vietnam War. In the 1980s, Roy represented the qualities the military wanted to promote, and he crafted a public persona that emphasized those qualities. He was an unflinching patriot and a shining example of service and courage.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Roy delivered hundreds of speeches around the world. He spoke at military installations, schools, municipal buildings, and civic and veterans organizations—Rotary clubs, American Legions, and Chambers of Commerce. When Roy was not delivering speeches, his life was filled with an endless stream of parades, media appearances, ground-breakings, and military ceremonies. Roy’s activities took him into the halls of American power and prestige. He met presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush on numerous occasions and regularly crossed paths with major American celebrities as well as Texas political luminaries such as H. Ross Perot, Ron Paul, and former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. During those years of fame, he testified in front of Congress, visited the White House twice, and was invited to every presidential inauguration between 1985 and 1997. One of America’s most famous war heroes, Roy was in constant demand. As he once joked to a Rhode Island audience, “I’m busier than a one-armed paperhanger with jock itch.”14
In his home state of Texas, Roy was practically royalty. In 1981, the Texas Press Association named him “Texan of the Year,” and Texas governor Bill Clements hosted an honorary “Roy Benavidez Day” at the state capital. Two years later, the Texas State Senate designated May 14, 1983, as “Roy P. Benavidez Day in Texas” and renamed the National Guard Armory in Roy’s hometown in his honor. Roy was similarly feted with Roy Benavidez Days in the cities of San Antonio, Houston, Galveston, El Paso, Corpus Christi, and Mercedes. The state’s political leaders loved being photographed with him and regularly invited him to participate in their fundraising dinners and commemorative events. Roy was a highly demanded speaker, and he traveled all over the state, serving as grand marshal in parades and offering remarks at all kinds of important events—graduations, veterans’ gatherings, holiday celebrations, and more.15
Since his death in 1998, Roy continues to be celebrated by members of the military community. Army posts across the South have various streets, ranges, and training programs named after Roy Benavidez. The United States Military Academy at West Point has a “Benavidez Room” containing Roy’s military portrait and a $10,000 bronze bust of him donated by the class of 1997. In 2001, the United States Navy christened a vehicle cargo ship named the USNS Benavidez. That same year, Roy Benavidez became the first Hispanic American honored with his own GI Joe. To this day, Roy remains respected across the globe by others who have fought and served. Some of America’s most famous military heroes—including the famed “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell—have for decades marveled at his incredible heroics.16
Roy has also long been championed by major American politicians, especially Republican leaders, who have been enamored by his courageous actions on May 2, 1968. Former United States senator John McCain opened his 2004 book, Why Courage Matters, with an anecdote about the “superhuman heroics of Roy Benavidez.” Former secretary of state Colin Powell wrote about Roy in his memoir, as did Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger, who called Roy’s Medal of Honor ceremony “one of the bright spots of the [Reagan] Presidency.” Roy drew the praises of both President George H. W. Bush and his son President George W. Bush, who called Roy “a man of great courage and determination.” As of this writing, Roy’s Medal of Honor remains prominently displayed in the American Heroes Gallery at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.17
But Roy was so much more than a war hero, especially among Hispanics. His rise to prominence in 1981 made Roy one of the country’s most famous Latinos at the beginning of an era many pundits dubbed “The Decade of the Hispanic.” As one of the most famous Hispanics of the 1980s, Roy was among a small number of Latino icons whose fame crossed over into mainstream American society. He was also a very different type of Hispanic idol, one famous not for his voice or beauty but for his patriotism and service. In some ways, he was the embodiment of a dream long deferred, a Hispanic soldier broadly accepted by the American public in exchange for his military contributions. Generations of Hispanic veterans had previously tried to make such a bargain, but the Latino heroes of World Wars I and II returned home only to find continued racial discrimination. Roy, on the other hand, was lionized as a national hero at a moment when Hispanic influence was expanding in all corners of American life. Latino audiences followed his life in the spotlight and cherished him as a representative of their people.18
When Roy first became famous, Dr. Leonardo Carrillo, a professor of ethnic studies at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, wrote and mailed to Roy a poem titled “Ballad of Roy Benavidez.” It’s a traditional Mexican corrido, one that retells the public version of Roy’s story—that of a poor boy who rose to prominence through heroism under fire. Like other corridos, the “Ballad of Roy Benavidez” tells an epic tale of a man’s courage and rise to social prominence, building on an oral tradition of storytelling that dates back hundreds of years. The final line reads “we must not lose hope.”19
The legend of Roy Benavidez has meant a great many things to a great many people—from hardened military hawks to Chicano academics—who have repackaged and reused it for their own purposes. To some, he is an interesting character who accomplished a remarkable feat of violent heroism. To others, he is an icon of the military or of an entire race, and an inspirational man whose American journey holds the promise to unlock some deeper meaning about perseverance, sacrifice, and citizenship. For most, Roy’s story lies somewhere in between. Like all myths and legends, portions of the story of Roy Benavidez have been told and retold time and time again. But his entire story has never been told before now.
The Ballad of Roy Benavidez is a book about an extraordinary American life. Although Roy has been widely celebrated for his actions in the Cambodian jungle, the story of those wartime heroics does not fully capture the richness or complexity of his American journey. Roy was more than just a warrior, and his story can teach us much more about American history than just its military exploits. To truly understand Roy’s life, it is essential to incorporate the backstory of his Hispanic family and look beyond the pomp and circumstance of America’s endless military celebrations to examine the pre- and postwar experiences of working-class veterans.
Roy was born Latino and poor in Great Depression–era Texas. He came from a family with deep Texas roots. His ancestors had lived in East Texas since the 1820s, well before Texas joined the United States. Roy’s family had been pioneers and landowners in East Texas, but they were forced from their lands by the racial discrimination that accompanied Texas independence from Mexico and entrance into the United States. Roy’s ancestors lost nearly everything and were reduced in status from major landowners to migrant farm laborers. By the time Roy was born in the 1930s, his family was among the millions of Hispanics who worked on other people’s farms for very little pay. Decades of racially discriminatory federal and state policies blocked Latinos from the very same opportunities—land grants, property, education, and access to government welfare programs like Social Security—that undergirded prosperity for millions of white families, many of whom, in turn, profited handsomely off the labor of poor Latinos. Roy spent much of his childhood in and out of school, working in the cotton and sugar beet fields of Texas and Colorado. And his youth in Jim Crow–era Texas was plagued by racial harassment and disadvantages.
Military service provided Roy with unique opportunities. The same American nation that allowed for such stark, systemic racial inequalities was also capable of providing enticing incentives for those willing to serve in its military. Like many American veterans, Roy joined the armed forces because he saw no better path toward upward mobility and equality. Military service provided Roy with not only a good career but also a strong sense of national belonging. “I felt more a part of something than I ever had in my life,” he explained of joining the Army. “Nobody cared if the other was black, brown, or green.… I was equal.” As Roy later wrote, “The United States of America had given me freedom and an opportunity to succeed.… I believe that only in America could I, a young Hispanic-Indian American, have risen to my place.”20
But such opportunities came with an extraordinary price. The promise of social advancement was affixed to the physical hazards of global warfare. Roy bore the wounds of that violence. In 1974, he described himself as “a walking roadmap [of] scars.” His family and closest friends remembered him plucking pieces of shrapnel from his skin and scalp, finally freeing the pieces of metal he carried home from Southeast Asia after years embedded in his body. Roy’s 1968 battle left him with excruciating pain every day for the rest of his life. But the violence he witnessed also made him grateful to have lived at all. He constantly reminded his audiences that “the real heroes are those who never came back, those who gave their lives for this country.”21
As a Medal of Honor recipient in the early 1980s, Roy at times became a political prop. Ronald Reagan, just a month into his presidency, staged a moment of grand political theater when he learned of the outstanding Latino Medal of Honor recipient. In February of 1981, recently inaugurated President Reagan held a stately ceremony at the Pentagon and bucked tradition by reading the award citation himself, adding for the audience that Vietnam veterans had come “home without a victory not because they’d been defeated, but because they’d been denied permission to win.” For many in the military, Reagan’s actions and rhetoric that day signaled the restoration of pride to an American military that was still reeling from the tragedy of the Vietnam War. Colin Powell attended and remembered the Benavidez ceremony. “That afternoon marked the changing of the guard for the armed forces,” Powell later wrote. “The military services had been restored to a place of honor.” Reagan scored major political points that day, and throughout much of his presidency, by presenting himself as the servicemen’s greatest advocate since the war in Vietnam. But Roy was not merely a passive recipient of praise. Just two years later, he used his own prestige to advocate for himself and millions of other veterans when Reagan’s policies threatened his livelihood.22
In February of 1983, Roy Benavidez received a letter from the Social Security Administration notifying him of the discontinuance of his disability benefits. He had been on disability since retiring from the Army. In notifying Roy of the end of his benefits, the letter coldly stated, “It is concluded that you retain the ability to lift a maximum of 50 pounds; you can frequently lift and carry 25 pounds.” “It is not possible for you to return to military service since you have retired,” read the letter, “however, other types of work are readily available for you in our economic environment.”23
Seven years earlier, an Army physician had diagnosed Roy with pulmonary disease, shortness of breath, severe chest wall pain, a degenerative cervical spine, osteoarthritis of the lumbar spine, chondromalacia, anterior and osseous nerve palsy, frequent nose bleeds, and sloping sensorineural hearing loss. Roy had incurred an estimated thirty-seven puncture wounds while fighting for his country. Excluded by birth from the greatest promises of American life, Benavidez had made the ultimate sacrifices to earn full citizenship and respect. Yet, there he was in 1983 being instructed to get back to work, told by his government that neither his life-threatening injuries nor his remarkable act of valor were enough to entitle him to Social Security disability benefits. “I was emotionally crushed,” Roy wrote, “that my country would question my integrity in this manner.” Roy went to Washington to defend his honor and his income. In doing so, he was placed in direct conflict with the very same administration whose public military pageantry often overshadowed the more complicated realities of its treatment of veterans.24
Historians of the 1980s have written dozens of books and articles on changes to America’s memory of the Vietnam War and the deconstruction of the nation’s welfare state. The Reagan era unlocked a new stance toward the war, one of unapologetic military boosterism that helped give shape to a restored form of hardline global anti-communism in the 1980s. Military spending increased as resources were redirected from a welfare state whose excessive anti-poverty programs, Reagan and his advisors argued, had led to the economic downturn of the 1970s. These central tenants of the Reagan presidency represented great and enduring changes to American society. But few historians have ever noticed the short, chubby Hispanic man wearing a Medal of Honor around his neck who appeared prominently in both episodes and served as a powerful connector between the two. Roy was not the determining factor in either trend, but his story became a major inflection point in each development. During the spring of 1983, the war hero became the living embodiment of a nation struggling over the questions and nature of the changing welfare state.
The Ballad of Roy Benavidez tracks the journey of Roy P. Benavidez across more than sixty years of an incredible American life, tracing Roy’s path against the backdrop of Texas history, Hispanic American history, the Cold War, and beyond. It seeks to move beyond the innumerable examples of Roy Benavidez battlefield hagiography to tell a more complete story, one far bigger and more beautiful, complex, and heart-wrenching than anything anyone has ever said about Roy Benavidez and that day of explosive violence in May of 1968.
This is not just a story about a man but a book that seeks to capture the essence of marginalized citizens struggling to belong in a militarized nation. Told through the lens of a disadvantaged boy who became a legendary hero, this story lays bare the framework of the wide range of tragedies and triumphs that characterized American life in the twentieth century for poor people like Roy Benavidez. It is a tale about the interconnected meanings of race, citizenship, and military service in modern American society—one that uses the lore of a particular individual to interrogate the ways America celebrates its most revered heroes, balanced against what it asks of them in return.