Roy always received a lot of mail. Ever since he was awarded the Medal of Honor, his mail and post office boxes were stuffed with letters. They came from every state in America and even overseas, sent from veterans, students, and everyday people who’d heard Roy’s story and wanted to share the impact he had on their lives. Some wrote just to thank Roy for his service. Others requested any number of things—a picture, an autograph, or an appearance at some event. The requests came from as far away as Norway and Belgium. His home address was unlisted, so people had to search. Some found it. Others just sent letters to the El Campo Post Office or even the El Campo Leader-News. At the end of the 1980s, he was receiving up to fifty letters per week.1
Roy did his best to answer them all. Letter-writing was a private part of his life that few people knew much about. Roy sent hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of letters every year. If there was one person who appreciated how much mail Roy received, it was his daughter Yvette. For years, Roy paid her to help catalog the correspondence. She would organize the letters by state and file them in a cabinet, affixed with a small note indicating Roy’s answer.2
As time wore on, and Roy’s fame began to fade, the letters started coming less from fans of the military and more from people who turned to Roy for other reasons. These were people who had found something meaningful in words Roy had said or in what they believed he represented. They were folks who needed not an autograph or picture but rather direction or hope.
People—especially young men—wrote to Roy to solicit his advice for their own lives. One such letter came from the small town of Delaware, Ohio. A young man wrote to Roy with the dilemma of being “torn between my duty to my country and the wishes of my mother.” The eighteen-year-old wanted to join the Army, but his mother was set against it. He wrote to Roy, “not only to applaud your book and patriotism but also to ask your advice on a dilemma that I’m faced with.… I would greatly appreciate it if you could give me some sort of advice on this issue.” There is no record of what Roy wrote back to the conflicted young man.3
In 1987, Roy received a handwritten letter from an eighth-grade girl at Bonnette Junior High School near Houston who had heard him speak at her school. The girl revealed that her mother had been killed in a car accident some years earlier. The driver, she wrote to Roy, was her stepfather, who at the time “was on tranquilizers mixed with qualudes [sic] and alcohol.” “I suffered from this,” the girl told Roy, and “hold my step father responsible.” She had responded to Roy’s anti-drug message. “I now know how important it is to not be messed up with drugs,” she insisted. “I also want to be a very moral citizen, like (from hearing you speak today) I think you are. I want to think [sic] you for doing your very best at defending our country and opening your heart to us. This means a great deal to me and my friends as well.… Your bravery and courage will also help us as well as our posterity.”4
That same year, Roy received a bundle of cards from students at Killough Middle School in Houston, another place he had recently spoken. “Your story was incredible!” wrote one student. “It really touched me. I try to listen to what you said about ‘will power,’ and that it could do anything.” “Listening to you it brought tears to my eyes,” penned another. “I respect you for caring so much for your country and flag.” “You also said,” wrote another, “that ‘we are the future leaders of the world’ and that had a strong impact on me.” “The color of our skin didn’t matter to you just the color of the flag,” wrote a student named Natasha. “To me, you are my favorite hero.” They thanked him, expressed interest in learning more about the war, and told him they were looking forward to the movie about his life.5
The following year, Roy sent a letter and picture to a veteran who wrote to say that he was dying of cancer. “I’m more afraid now than I ever was in combat,” the man told Roy. “Your letter maid [sic] me feel better than I’ve felt in the last six months.… I have your picture over my bed, and when I hurt real bad I just look up at a real brother, and it helps me a lot. I just hope a little of your bravery rubs off on me.” The man told Roy in 1988 that “any day now, can be my last,” but it turned out that he would live another twenty-three years, longer than Roy himself.6
For a brief period, Roy became pen pals with a young man who was struggling with his father’s deployment to South Korea. Roy never spoke at the young man’s school, but the boy somehow got ahold of Roy’s address and wrote to share that he had found comfort and inspiration in Roy’s book. In doing so, he also mentioned having a hard time with his father being sent to live so far away. Roy wrote back to the boy, comforting him by reminding him that his dad was involved in something important, and that the country needed them both to remain strong while they were apart. The boy’s father wrote independently to Roy, thanking him “for your kindness.” The father continued, “He found strength to go on by the heroism you exhibited in your book.”7
Very few people close to Roy mentioned his extensive correspondence with his admirers. The author Pete Billac did write that Roy “likes the ones from kids best,” but that was about it. Although Roy may have told friends that he received a lot of mail, no one knew quite how much. When Roy was at home, he spent much of his life in his den, surrounded by military memorabilia, opening those letters and reading their contents. This was a different experience for the hero, one set far apart from the glory of his days on the road. He didn’t talk much about those letters or their meaning. But he kept them, and he answered nearly all of them. People were always telling Roy what he meant to them. Few ever stopped to consider what they all meant to him.8
When Roy wasn’t at home answering mail, he was out on the road—off to speak at Lackland Air Force Base; the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce; Hispanic Heritage celebrations in Florida, California, and Texas; and seemingly every branch of the American Legion in his home state. There was no discernable pattern to these engagements beyond the theme of patriotism. Roy went everywhere. He was at Flag Day in Richmond, Virginia; the Midwest Hispanic Conference in Merrillville, Indiana; and American Heritage Week in Rock Island, Illinois. In the spring of 1992, he was in Colorado, where he spoke to an estimated 3,500 students. For a while, he traveled with a replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, appearing with the model monument in Michigan, Wisconsin, Maryland, and Tennessee.9
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Roy spoke at fewer events honoring him specifically and more at ceremonies celebrating the military more broadly. He also often spoke at Hispanic heritage events or celebrations of the big three patriotic American holidays—Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Veterans Day. Those holidays were special days for Roy, moments in time when it was normal to be such a staunch patriot. He embodied the spirit of these holidays every day of his life, but people seemed to appreciate that attitude most on the days when the main streets of America filled with flag-waving marchers in patriotic parades. “Roy P. Benavidez is what the Fourth of July is all about,” wrote a Texas journalist in 1989. “Veterans Day is about Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez,” agreed an El Paso reporter the following year.10
Out of all his speaking events, Roy’s greatest joy remained his visits with young people at schools. He was especially invested in Hispanic-serving schools. “They need positive role models,” he told an Abilene reporter about Latino students. “That’s what I’m trying to be.” His presence was an important symbol of Hispanic pride and achievement at a time when Hispanics were severely underrepresented in all aspects of American public life, despite being the fastest growing minority group in the country. Roy was an example for young Latino students, a hero of their ilk and a powerful symbol of Hispanic contributions to the United States. Years later, a Latino activist based in California remembered Roy’s 1987 visit with Hispanic students in Santa Ana. “The children stood in awe to see his chest full of medals,” the witness recalled, “and hanging down from his neck was the Congressional Medal of Honor.”11
In 1991, Roy experienced one of the great honors of his life when a committee of Houston educators decided to name a new school after him. Roy had no idea it was coming. One day, he received an unexpected phone call informing him that a new $4.1 million facility would be dedicated in his honor. Roy was chosen because the school was expected to serve a large Hispanic population (85 percent), and the naming committee wanted to select a Hispanic icon. “He cares about kids,” one of the educators explained. “He espouses what we believe in for our kids. He’s a role model.” They held a naming ceremony the following May, filled with band performances, the pledge of allegiance, and the singing of patriotic songs. Roy, of course, was also asked to speak. Roy P. Benavidez Elementary School is still in use today on the west side of Houston.12
In 1993, Roy started a fund to help Latino students in El Campo. His “Hispanic Education Scholarship Fund” kicked off that year with a banquet and raffle. The proceeds went toward scholarships of $300 each to local students who were enrolling in college. In 1993, the fund distributed ten such scholarships, increasing its total to fifteen in 1994 and twenty-five by 1995, when its annual event raised roughly $7,500.13
Meanwhile, Roy continued working to spread his own story. He still wanted a movie, and in 1992, he partnered with a company named Bronze Bishop Films to produce a one-hour documentary on his life. This small firm was in the business of “developing film and television projects which speak to the declining moral values in America.” The proposal included Roy as an executive producer along with several individuals who had experience in the film industry. Their intent was to tell Roy’s backstory and show “never before seen footage” of the 1981 Medal of Honor ceremony before ending the film with clips of Roy talking with schoolchildren. They thought the film could be shown on PBS and perhaps some cable channels. Unfortunately, it was never made. The proposal was probably about as close as Roy ever got to creating a feature film about his life.14
In 1993, the White House called Roy to ask if he would stand in for President Bill Clinton in presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to actress Martha Raye, who had entertained American soldiers during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Roy flew to Los Angeles with Jose Garcia for the ceremony. Pictures of Roy standing next to the woman nicknamed “Colonel Maggie” were printed in newspapers across America.15
In 1994, the Associated Press picked up the story of Roy meeting the family of Leroy Wright at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Roy had previously corresponded with Wright’s widow, but they had never before met in person. “Everywhere I go I mention your husband,” Roy told He Ja Wright. That same year, Roy was back in the news when he served as a guest judge for the Mrs. America Pageant with The Brady Bunch actress Florence Henderson. Wherever Roy visited, local newspapers interviewed him and printed stories about his speaking engagements. Roy was still constantly in the media, especially in Texas. As the San Antonio Express-News observed, “Few national heroes have had more written about them than Roy Benavidez.”16
Roy also worked on two more books. The first, The Last Medal of Honor, was published in 1990 by Pete Billac. A prolific author of books on widely ranging topics, Billac interviewed Roy extensively as part of his research. Roy happily participated, eager as he was to spread his story to as many people as possible. In public, Roy promoted the book, traveling across Texas for a handful of events where he autographed copies. Roy said that some of the book’s sales revenue would be contributed to help build a new memorial for women veterans of the American war in Vietnam and to aid homeless Vietnam veterans.17
The book recounts Roy’s heroics from May 2, 1968. It quotes heavily from written testimony provided by both Roy and Brian O’Connor in 1980, along with that of a handful of helicopter pilots who had been involved in the action. Billac spent a lot of time with Roy and clearly liked him a lot. The book is an admirable but somewhat brief and winding montage of Roy’s heroics, supplemented with some short descriptions of other people’s wartime heroics and reprinted copies of letters Roy received. It also includes an alarming diagram of Roy’s body showing the locations his wounds.18
The Last Medal of Honor didn’t receive much attention outside of a handful of positive reviews in Texas. A reviewer in Victoria praised it as “a story of blood and guts… and the courageous and selfless sacrifice that forged a hero and allowed him to tell his version of the Vietnam War. One that we can be proud of.” The El Paso Herald-Post carried a very brief review from a local reader who called it “excellent,” praising its “fine job portraying the life of a South Texas Indian/Hispanic orphan who suffered racial harassment while growing up.” Another syndicated columnist wrote about Roy and the meaning of courage but did little to evaluate the book beyond describing the day of Roy’s battle on May 2, 1968. Roy’s hometown El Campo News-Leader offered the most extensive review, but even that was decidedly neutral.19
In 1995, Roy released a much more popular book titled Medal of Honor. This book was coauthored by John R. Craig, an Air Force veteran and journalist based out of Houston. He also ran a literary management company. H. Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who at the time was between two high-profile presidential campaigns, agreed to write the foreword. Perot used the space to celebrate the “opportunities” provided by the United States. “I find Roy’s life one with which I can empathize,” Perot wrote, “and one that should make all Americans proud of the opportunities America offers to those strong enough to seize the chance.” “As a fellow Texan,” Perot concluded, “I have known about and admired Roy’s courage and his fulfillment of the American dream.”20
Medal of Honor was the best writing Roy ever published about his life. It’s a straightforward biography, opening with the early details of his childhood before moving into his time in the Army. Like Roy’s public persona, the book is serious but funny, with descriptions of poverty and battlefield action interspersed with tales of soldiers’ jokes and military hijinks. It’s true to reality, except the part about the timing of the death of Roy’s mother, which he never publicly acknowledged. It’s also imbalanced, dominated by Roy’s time in the service, with few details about his life after Vietnam, except a brief chapter on his pursuit and receipt of the Medal of Honor. But even there, he downplayed his own role in the process, focusing instead on the unnamed Special Forces buddies who he said encouraged him to pursue the medal. Roy was always careful to say it had been others who had sparked his pursuit. To reveal otherwise might have led some to cast him as a glory hound. The book ends after a short discussion of Roy’s fight to retain his disability benefits in 1983.21
In the book, Roy discusses his family’s history in Texas. He didn’t know many details of their land ownership or movements, but he understood the basic story. In some of the final writings of his life, Roy described his relatives who fought for Texas in its “war for independence.” “In spite of the loyalty of the Benavides brothers,” he wrote, “they were in danger after the war was won.” More than lamentation, this heritage was a point of pride for Roy. “The Benavideses,” he emphasized in the 1995 memoir, “were vaqueros, cowboys who had practiced their craft for two hundred years before the gringos came to sit at their feet and learn to be cowboys.”22
In an epilogue, Roy offered perhaps his most thoughtful and challenging critique of the American war in Vietnam. “A great deal of the work that my buddies and I did was lost,” he lamented. “The Vietnam conflict was a tragedy that should not have happened,” he insisted, “because in my opinion the majority of the South Vietnamese did not understand or support individual freedom. They were ill-prepared as fighters to wage war.” Roy did not seriously question the basic premise of the global war to stop communism. His ideological conformity with the United States government and its military at that time prevented him from ever doing so publicly. He focused on the “soldiers who had died [so] that others might be free.” And he insisted on honoring America. “I believe,” he argued, “that only in America could I, a young Hispanic-Indian American, have risen to my place.” It was for that reason, he insisted, that he gave speeches so often, and why he was so dedicated to sharing his experiences with others. It is young people who matter most, Roy wrote. “Only through the transfer of knowledge from generation to generation will free men survive.”23
Roy hustled to promote his book. He personally shipped over one hundred copies to media outlets across the country, asking them to review the book. As with many of his efforts to publicize his story, Roy did not receive the response he desired. The book was only lightly reviewed, but it did impact a lot of people in ways Roy could not have expected.24
In the months after Medal of Honor was published, letters responding to Roy’s book arrived in El Campo from across the United States and even from as far away as Germany, Korea, and Australia. The first edition included the address of Roy’s post office box in El Campo where readers could write him directly. A Kentucky man wrote to share, “Your book inspired me. It lets me know that absolutely nothing can conquer the human spirit.” A Vietnam veteran living in Chicago penned, “Your book made me cry and affected me greatly.” The son of another veteran from Nevada wrote to say, “Your book has given me a lift and inspiration.” A woman in Toronto called the book “truly inspirational” and sent along some poetry she had been inspired to write. A teacher in Germany wrote to say, “I enjoyed it [the book] very much. It touched me very much.… Thank you for speaking out for what you believe in,” and, “Please know, Mr. Benavidez, that you are one of my heroes.” A twenty-year-old community college student with cerebral palsy praised Roy’s book as a “true testimony of the American spirit.” He wrote, “The main reason I wrote this letter to you is to let you know that although I will never serve in the military the military has been an inspiration to me.” A high school senior shared the impact the book had on him: “I am also very proud and grateful to you for serving our country in a very dangerous and controversial era.” The young man attributed his decision to join the Army ROTC at the University of Texas to Roy’s example. “I have been thinking about this for a long time,” he wrote, “and I think your book pushed me over the edge.” A high school student in Idaho wrote to share that he was her favorite author. “Because of you,” the eleventh grader insisted, “many teenagers’ lives have changed for the better.… Thank you for instilling in me more patriotism, for speaking against drugs, gangs, and dropping out of school.” A fourteen-year-old in Florida wrote to tell him, “It was the best book I have ever read.” A California man told Roy, “You are what makes me proud to be an American.”25
Roy’s latest book came out amid another busy time on the road. In 1995 and 1996, he spoke at dozens more events: the Oklahoma American GI Forum annual meeting; the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Hispanic Heritage Month awards luncheon; Hispanic Heritage Month at Peterson Air Force Base; Hispanic Heritage Month for the Army Corps of Engineers in Philadelphia; the Army’s 221st birthday celebration in San Antonio; a Latino veterans conference in Woodburn, Oregon; the San Jose American GI Forum Cinco de Mayo parade; Armed Forces Week at the National Security Agency; and an event at the Misawa Air Base in Japan. He spoke to students, cadets, and Hispanic groups; inmates, pilots, and police; even insurance underwriters. “He is an unabashed patriot, and a pleasure to talk to,” wrote a Rhode Island journalist who saw Roy speak in 1996. “Like that medal he wears, you have to salute him.”26
Throughout these busy years, Roy’s health declined. He turned sixty years old in 1995, hardly an elderly man but also much older than his mid-40s, when he commenced his itinerant lifestyle. Roy was a war hero, but he was also an aging man saddled with hypertension, reduced lung capacity, and chronic severe pain. He was on the road too much to adequately manage his poor condition. And when he was gone, he was wrapped up in the moment, sharing stories, talking to thousands of people, and eating and drinking sometimes late into the night. Roy had escaped battle alive on May 2, 1968, but the wounds he sustained in that battle haunted him forever and increasingly began to slow him down.
In 1993, Yvette was at a routine optometrist visit when the doctor asked her, “How’s your dad doing with the diabetes?” Yvette was “flabbergasted,” she remembers, blurting out, “What?!” “Oh yeah,” the doctor told her, “I diagnosed him about five years ago.” Yvette told her family. They obviously knew that Roy had major long-term health problems, but they did not know about this. It was evident that their father had not been taking good care of himself, or at least not taking the diabetes diagnosis seriously.27
Roy had never had a great relationship with his own health. It is likely that he simply didn’t know much about the seriousness of his conditions beyond the daily physical limitations. “He didn’t do any research like we would do research today,” explained Denise, “and try to figure out—doctor our own selves.” It’s also important to consider just how many problems Roy was facing. It was hard to keep up. He had pain everywhere, and the doctors’ orders were a maddening maze of prescriptions and instructions. He didn’t completely ignore their directions. He took dozens of pills every day, and he walked his mileage at Friendship Park. He would drive himself to regular appointments at the VA in Houston, but otherwise he thought he had a good handle on his health.28
Roy’s inability, even at times unwillingness, to properly manage his own health was also related to the war. Roy’s experiences with battle left him with a unique perspective about death and his own mortality. “I think he thought he was invincible,” remembers Yvette, “that if he could do two tours in Vietnam and come back, almost die, intestines hanging out, you know, all that, that ‘nothing’s going to happen to me.’” For a man who had survived Roy’s experiences in combat, the diagnosis of diabetes seemed deferrable. Roy had certainly navigated much more pressing health problems. Yvette explains that her dad’s mindset was, “‘with everything in life that I’ve been through, I’ve earned it.’ That’s how I feel he felt.” Most days, he didn’t feel any worse than on others. Every day was a gift anyway, so he just kept living.29
When it came to diabetes, Yvette thought Roy was “ignorant about the disease and the progression of it.” Roy also didn’t want his family to dwell on his health care. They had their own lives and interests. His kids were mostly out of the house or about to move off on their own, getting married and progressing in their careers. He became a grandfather in 1992. “I think he just didn’t want to burden us with it,” Denise explains. “It was just his own personal matter.” “We’d ask how he is,” and he would respond, “Oh, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” Roy was never truly “fine” by most people’s standard. He was always sick and wounded. His family had little reason to think any one problem was much worse than the issues they saw him face every day. When their father, a man celebrated across the world for his superhuman feats, told them he was feeling okay, they believed him, and he just might have believed it himself.30
Things changed in 1997. That January, Roy and Noel traveled to Washington, DC, for Bill Clinton’s second presidential inauguration. On their second night in the city, Noel, twenty-four years old at the time, went to the hotel bar to eat dinner and hang out with some acquaintances while his father was out with his Medal of Honor buddies. When Noel returned to their shared room, Roy was asleep. During the night, he remembered hearing his father get up “a couple of times, but I didn’t think nothing of it.”31
The next morning, the day of the inauguration, Noel looked over to find his father sitting upright on the edge of the bed. “He was just all bruised, his abdomen, his ribcage, that area,” remembered Roy’s son. Noel asked his dad if he was alright, and Roy brushed him off, just as he always did when his children asked about his health. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” Noel began to get ready for the day. He shaved and showered and was walking out of the hotel bathroom to get dressed when he saw his dad still sitting there. Something was wrong. When Noel noticed Roy’s speech “getting a little distorted,” he called his mom who told her son to put Roy on the phone. They argued, but Roy dismissed her concerns, saying, “I’m just a little slow moving.” They finished dressing and prepared for the day ahead.32
When they went downstairs, some of the other Medal of Honor recipients began to notice Roy’s appearance. “He was really sluggish,” Noel remembered. “He was pale. I’d never seen this side of him before. And his speech kept slurring off and on.” Roy’s buddies began asking him, “Roy, you don’t look too good. What’s wrong?” Roy blamed his appearance on a lingering cold. Lucian Adams, a famous World War II hero and Latino Medal of Honor recipient from Texas, asked Noel about Roy’s condition. Shortly thereafter, Adams’s daughter told Noel that Roy needed to go to a hospital. Another Medal of Honor recipient who was a doctor came over and looked at Roy. “You need to go to the hospital, Roy,” the fellow hero told him. Roy responded, “I’m not going to no damn hospital,” Noel recalls. “I’ll go home before I go to a hospital.”33
One of the military men in the crew suggested that the Walter Reed Army Medical Center “would accept him ASAP,” remembered Noel, but Roy insisted that he fly home. Noel called the airline and arranged a flight back to Houston later that day. They went to the airport, where Roy had a bite to eat and started to feel a bit better. But he became very fidgety on the flight. He experienced serious discomfort as the plane rose and began getting aggravated. The flight attendants finally let him stand up and he began to relax. Roy was picked up at Hobby Airport by Yvette and her husband, Rene, who observed that Roy was “having difficulty breathing.” “I remember,” said Yvette, “just he sat in the back [of the car] and he was just still talking, but his voice sounded weak and he just looked really bloated.” They took him to his doctor in El Campo and he was diagnosed with pneumonia, possibly stemming from a case of the flu.34
From that point, Roy’s life was deluged by an avalanche of health problems. His chronic health problems worsened, and his organs began to show signs of failure. He was in constant pain, he had trouble breathing, and his legs began weeping from the diabetes, which he had never managed well. “That was the worst of it,” remembers Denise, “to see the legs, fluid just pumping out of the pores of his legs, and he’d be soaking wet in his sweats and the sheets and everything and they’d try to wrap him up in towels and bandages to stop the weeping. It was horrific.” He most likely had some type of kidney disease related to his diabetes. He was retaining water in his belly and would become bloated to the point where his kids felt it necessary to take him to the VA hospital in Houston. At one point, his regular doctor in El Campo told his children that he had congestive heart failure. Roy didn’t have long to live.35
“It was just a roller-coaster ride after that,” Noel remembers. “It was very tense.” Roy was in and out of the VA hospital. All the kids pitched in to help. Noel and his wife moved back to El Campo from Houston. Denise and Yvette were already living nearby. The children helped Lala by taking turns taking care of their father. It was incredibly time-consuming, emotional, and stressful. They were losing him and were spending hours driving back and forth between Houston and El Campo in an endless, circuitous process that offered only temporary help with no end in sight.36
Still, Roy somehow kept going. His health no longer allowed for such a rigorous travel schedule, but he managed to keep some of his speaking commitments in 1997, even after his health scare. In April, he flew to Bismarck, North Dakota, to speak with the National Guard Association of North Dakota and the Bismarck VFW. In September, he went to Alaska, where he spoke at Fort Richardson, the University of Alaska, and a local middle school. That Veterans Day, in November, he spoke in New Jersey at a Vietnam veterans memorial service.37
Back at home, the constant trips to the Houston VA hospital took a serious toll on the family. Lala also went, but it was the kids who usually drove their parents to the visits. They were all exhausted, and Roy was going through a lot of “psychological issues at that time,” remembers Yvette, “because I think he knew then ‘this is the end.’” He was still in good enough spirits that he “cracked jokes,” but he was definitely “frustrated,” recalls Denise. “He just wanted to escape,” says Yvette. The people in the hospitals wanted Roy to see a psychiatrist. They also wanted to prescribe antianxiety medication because “I think he was starting to have panic attacks,” explained Yvette. “I think fear was settling in.… He didn’t want to take the medicine. He didn’t want to see the psychiatrist.” “He was getting to be very combative with everyone there at the hospital,” said Denise, “to where they were starting to strap him down.”38
The family began having significant problems with the Houston VA. Roy was no one’s version of a dream patient, but his treatment there was certainly unbecoming of a veteran, especially for one of the most celebrated war heroes in the United States. Roy did not enjoy having needles inserted into his arms, and he tried to remove them, which led the hospital staff to begin restraining him to the bed. “We would walk in, and he’d be restrained, and that was really hard to see,” remembers Yvette. One of Denise’s friends who worked at the Houston VA once checked in on Roy and discovered that he was also being given drugs for sedation. When Noel heard this and tried to get the responsible physician on the phone, the doctor blew him off during a golf match. “I was furious,” Noel said.39
At the same time, the hospital staff was allowing all sorts of visitors into Roy’s room. While once visiting his father, Noel found a crowd of “just random people,” explains Yvette, “wanting to talk to him, [and asking for] autographs.” Noel would have to tell the staff not to allow visitors who wanted to meet the hero. The family also found a sharp object sitting out in the open in their father’s room and were concerned about his access to the item given his current mental state. He could have grabbed it and hurt somebody, even himself. Then one day, Roy’s Medal of Honor wristwatch went missing. It’s a unique watch given only to Medal of Honor recipients, and someone at the hospital had taken Roy’s while he was admitted. Incredulous, the family inquired about the issue and the watch was returned anonymously, but it further eroded their relationship with the Houston VA. “I felt like they were not taking his health care seriously enough for us,” Yvette recalls.40
In May of 1998, after months of questionable treatment in Houston, the family finally had enough and decided against ever sending him back. With some assistance from Roy’s military buddies, they arranged to have him transported by ambulance from Houston to BAMC in San Antonio, back to the hospital where he was treated after both tours in Vietnam. The Houston VA, concerned about a possible public relations nightmare for their treatment of the famous veteran, urged the family to keep Roy in Houston, but his family and friends refused. His friends essentially “came and kidnapped Dad,” Denise says, and took him to BAMC, where he remained until his next release. They decided to take him to BAMC for future stays. He would certainly have more privacy in San Antonio, as the Army could better restrict access to his room.41
BAMC was better for Roy and his family. San Antonio is about twice as far from El Campo as Houston, but the improved care was worth the trip. The family took him to San Antonio when excessive fluid collected in his body and needed to be drained. Typically, these visits involved an eight- or nine-hour outpatient procedure that took most of the day. Sometimes he would stay overnight, and his family would lodge at the Fisher House, a residence near BAMC that provides shelter for military families whose loved ones are in the hospital. Roy’s military buddies in the San Antonio area also helped. His good friend Benito Guerrero lived in San Antonio and would sometimes meet the family halfway between El Campo and San Antonio to drive Roy to BAMC.42
But Roy’s health continued to spiral downward. He developed anemia, and his kidneys began to show signs of failure. “They couldn’t put a time on it,” Noel remembered of the doctors’ answers. “They couldn’t say, ‘He’s going to die in a year.… He’s going to die in three months.’… They just said they were going to do the best they can and we’re going to have to do the best we can.”43
In October of 1998, doctors informed Roy that they would need to amputate his right leg at the knee. His diabetes had caused severe nerve damage in his leg and left him exposed to infection and further tissue damage. He received the amputation, then started rehab and was fitted for a prosthetic leg. Roy experienced “phantom pains” in the missing leg. What a cruel twist. Roy could never escape pain. For the last thirty years of his life, he lived every day in pain, feeling it even in the leg that was no longer there.44
A couple weeks after his amputation, a reporter from the San Antonio Express-News visited Roy to write another feature story about the famous Texan. Roy at the time was rehabbing in Methodist Hospital Northeast, having just come off another surgery a few days before. The article offered a grim update for fans of Roy Benavidez. The author opened the piece with an anecdote about Roy emitting “a long, high-pitched moan” due to the pain coming from his amputated leg. Roy was shown in a wheelchair sitting by a window talking to another vet. Another image showed him using a walker with the help of a physical therapist, his face grimacing in obvious pain. “He has a long road ahead,” the author told readers. “He wants to continue inspiring kids to stay off drugs and get an education, a mission he’d gladly undertake, if only his body cooperates with his mind and spirit.” Still, Roy’s patriotism rang through the interview. “I’m proud to be an American,” he told the reporter.45
That article was reprinted in newspapers across Texas in early November, just before Veterans Day. The coverage upset some of Roy’s friends and family who didn’t like the depiction of him as weak or suffering. One family friend wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper because “she didn’t like to see Dad like that,” remembers Denise. “No one did, but it was the reality of it all.”46
Letters started coming to the hospital. The news coverage had alerted readers to Roy’s situation, and some of those readers began sending cards and notes to his room at Northeast Methodist. Roy received cards and handwritten notes from all over the country—East Chicago, Indiana; Omaha, Nebraska; Manchester, Maine; Hoover, Alabama; Latrobe, Pennsylvania; West Point, New York; and, of course, from all over Texas. The mail came from as far away as Australia and South Korea. Some of the people had heard Roy speak and referenced a moment from their memories. Others mentioned his book. Many thanked him for his service to the country. Nearly all wished him a speedy recovery.47
The most touching letters came from students, some of whom Roy had visited. Teachers asked entire classes to make get-well cards using craft paper and crayons. These projects came to Roy in the hospital, signed by dozens of students who left brief messages of encouragement. Students drew flags, soldiers, and tanks on the cards. One young Hispanic student wrote, “I never had a hero but you are my first hero.”48
Other students wrote essays or filled out worksheets explaining the meaning of the flag and answering the question, “What does it mean to be an American?” Kids in grades 1 through 8 sent these projects to Roy in the hospital. Being an American “means we help,” wrote a second grader. “It means to share.” “In America we get all kinds of choices,” declared a first grader. For another, being an American “means I can go to school here, and keep some of my friends.” A lot of the first graders wrote that the flag makes them think of veterans.49
An entire class of fifth graders from Orange Grove, Texas, wrote to share that they were learning about Roy and the Vietnam War. They were ten and eleven years old, and they sent juvenile but heartwarming messages. “You will be a hero for all of us for the rest of our lives,” one of the students told him. “I think you are way cool,” wrote another. “I think you are the bravest man in the world,” one student told him. “You are a true hero,” another student penned. “I am also very sorry that that [sic] they cut off your leg.” A ten-year-old Hispanic girl wrote, “I’m proud of you for doing what you did.… P.S. you’re my hero!” They wished him well and invited him to visit their class when he got out of the hospital. He would have loved to go.50
Roy lay in his hospital bed recovering from surgery. He laid there in pain, aided by medications designed to keep him comfortable. After he lost his leg, his family knew he wouldn’t live much longer. The letters he received were a bridge from the past to the future. Roy had once been like some of those at-risk kids. That’s why he was so motivated to speak with Hispanic youths about their direction in their life. It was that orphan boy, grown up into a heroic man, who said such encouraging messages to the kids he met across America. Some might have disagreed with his approach, but in the end, that’s what he most wanted to be, a role model for the Hispanic youths of Texas, someone who could help children find a path toward a happy, productive life.
That Veterans Day of 1998 was a rare one, among the very few when Roy Benavidez was not out somewhere marching in a parade or delivering a speech. He still had several outstanding speaking engagements and was upset about missing them while he recovered in the hospital. But in some ways, the audiences came to him that year. In the hospital, he had those letters, the mail from young students, the ones he wanted to reach most, the ones he always called the “future leaders of America.”51
Chris Barbee remembered Roy expressing frustration during those days that he couldn’t make a speaking event in Philadelphia where he was supposed to deliver a talk to students. Of course he couldn’t go. He was bedridden, sick, and medicated, having recently lost his leg. But he was concerned about missing his favorite events, the speeches when he was out on the road talking to young people. He never wanted to stop. He never grew too tired of being on the road. And even as late as November 17, 1998, he was still holding out hope for a movie. “Hopefully soon,” he responded to one admirer that day in a letter, “we can make a movie about my life, and then we’ll be able to show America what I’m really all about.”52
Roy remained in the hospital for a few weeks after the story ran in the San Antonio Express-News. His closest friends and family came to see him. By then, Roy knew he was dying. Jose Garcia saw Roy near the end and remembered Roy asking him, “Do me a favor. Look after my family.” Roy said something similar during a visit with Chris Barbee. When Barbee visited Roy, he saw his good friend lying in bed, disheveled and barely able to speak. Roy grabbed Barbee by the front of his shirt and pulled him closer as he struggled to say something. Barbee couldn’t quite make it out, but he thought Roy was asking him “to look after his family.” “Okay, Roy,” Barbee told him. “There was a sense of relief and he let go of my shirt,” remembered Barbee. “That was our last conversation.”53
Roy Benavidez died at 1:33 p.m. on November 29, 1998. He was sixty-three years old. His death was caused by sepsis and respiratory failure stemming from aspiration pneumonia. He also had anemia and chronic liver disease, and his heart and kidneys were failing. In some regard, it was a miracle that he lived as long as he did. He had carried the wounds of May 2, 1968, from that day until his last.54
In Texas, the news was broadcast over the radio and local television. Governor George W. Bush ordered all flags across the state flown at half-mast. “Roy was a great Texan,” said the governor, “a Medal of Honor winner, a man of great courage and determination.” Just down the road at Fort Sam Houston, over one hundred soldiers were eating a meal in a busy mess hall when news of Roy’s death came on the television. “Every soldier in the room stopped eating and sat staring at the big-screen tv,” one of the soldiers wrote to Lala. “Not a sound was made.… That’s the kind of respect your husband deserved.” Later that week, Dan Rather offered an obituary on the national CBS Evening News. Rather said: “Somebody once told Roy Benavidez they thought his one-man rescue mission was extraordinary. He replied, ‘No that’s duty.’ And that’s a hero.”55
Roy’s obituary appeared in newspapers from Miami to Seattle. All the obituaries mentioned the Congressional Medal of Honor and described the actions that earned him the award. “Because of Benavidez and others like him, our lives are free, our nation lives and our world is blessed,” wrote a Hispanic columnist in Texas. Some mentioned his work speaking at schools. Many of the articles quoted him as recently saying, “I am proud to serve my country, serve it well.”56
Condolences addressed to Lala and “family” poured in from across the United States. People wanted to share how much Roy had touched their lives and express their sympathy and grief. Many of the cards were sent by people who had heard Roy speak. They said wonderful things about him. One of the letters was from a Latino soldier stationed in Alaska who had just seen Roy the previous year. “He was a strong yet humble, caring man,” he wrote. “Roy has been a true role model for me and he makes me proud to be a soldier and proud to be an American.” One couple made a donation on Roy’s behalf to the Houston elementary school that bears his name. Others passed along their prayers and blessings. The cards and letters came from all over—Anaheim, Wichita, Shreveport, Honolulu, Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, Nashville, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and more. Many of the writers had never met Roy, but they thanked him and Lala for his service and expressed their sympathies that he was gone.57
There were services in El Campo and San Antonio. Unbeknownst to Roy’s family, he had already made arrangements to be buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery instead of in El Campo with much of the rest of his family, including Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alexandria. He wanted to be buried on base, at a place where Army men did their jobs. His buddies would join him there one day, and so too, eventually, would Lala.58
A rosary service was held on the evening of Tuesday, December 1, at St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church in El Campo, where Roy, Lala, and all their children were married. The crowd was standing room only, and overflowed into the parish hall. Passersby paid their respects to Roy, who lay in a coffin draped in the American flag and surrounded by flowers, the logo of the 82nd Airborne, and the battlefield cross of his helmet resting on his rifle. Roy’s good friend Chris Barbee fought back tears as he delivered an emotional eulogy to his buddy of more than twenty years. “It was his willingness to stand up and be counted that made him special,” Barbee said. “And that trait endeared him to people all over this country.”59
After the El Campo ceremony, members of the Special Forces Association escorted Roy’s body back to San Antonio. On that Wednesday, he lay in an open casket at the Fort Sam Houston Main Post Chapel. Soldiers came to pay their respects. Roy was a legend in the Special Forces community. “There’s no one in Special Forces who doesn’t know Roy Benavidez by reputation,” said a major general from Fort Bragg who came for the funeral.60
On Thursday, December 3, Roy’s funeral was held at the historic San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, the oldest church in Texas. It’s a big, beautiful Roman Catholic cathedral built in the French Gothic style, with cream-colored limestone walls, stained-glass windows, and twin bell towers. That morning, more than a thousand mourners came to San Fernando Cathedral. It was a bright, sunny day in San Antonio with temperatures in the upper seventies. The church was packed. Members of the media wanted to bring in cameras, but they were stopped by Roy’s friends and family who preferred a private affair. The attendees had driven from far and wide. A group of veterans who’d met Roy a decade before in Chicago drove through the night to attend. The priest leading the service noted how both Roy and Jesus had been “willing to give it all up for the sake of others.” “I hope and pray that all of us learn that important lesson,” he said. Another of Roy’s friends described him as “a real flesh and blood hero to all of us—and then some.” It was an emotional and powerful affair, “the type of funeral,” Chris Barbee said, “that a Medal of Honor recipient should get.”61
After the event at San Fernando, a motorcade drove to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery for the burial. It was a traditional military service. The pallbearers, firing squad, and buglers were Green Berets from Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Roy’s family sat in the front row underneath a collapsible tent. After the chaplain made his remarks, the cadets offered a twenty-one-gun salute and the bugler played “Taps.” The soldiers collected and folded the flag draping Roy’s casket, and a major general from Fort Bragg presented it to Lala. The men lowered Roy’s body into the ground where it remains today. Roy’s grave is located near the entrance of the cemetery, in the shade of an oak tree, underneath a towering pole holding aloft an American flag.62