(from Roy Benavidez,
Medal of Honor: One Man’s Journey from
Poverty and Prejudice)
ROY BENAVIDEZ is an American proud of his heritage. His father was Mexican, and when he was a soldier in Vietnam, Roy’s radio call name, affectionately given him by his brothers in arms, was “Tango Mike/Mike,” bemusedly signifying “That Mean Mexican.” His mother was Yaqui Indian. The Yaqui were implacable warriors. For 350 years they fought all interlopers, be they Spanish, French, Mexican, or American; hidden in their mountain fastness, invisible in their barren deserts, the Yaqui were feared by even the Apaches. Such a bloodline would serve Master Sergeant Benavidez well in Vietnam.
President Ronald Reagan pinned the Congressional Medal of Honor on Benavidez’s jacket for his exceptional courage during a firefight in 1968. During his first tour of duty in Vietnam, Roy had stepped on a land mine and miraculously recovered; he returned to Vietnam for service as a member of the elite special forces, the Green Berets. On May 2, 1968, twelve soldiers, including three of Benavidez’s Green Beret friends, were dropped into a small jungle clearing west of Loc Ninh, inside the Cambodian border, on a secret reconnaissance mission authorized by special presidential orders. A North Vietnamese regiment quickly surrounded the twelve-man team, whose leader carried highly confidential papers and radio equipment. Three helicopter attempts were made to evacuate the Green Beret team; at the time Roy Benavidez was safely back at the base. As soon as he heard the news, however, he boarded the next helicopter and flew into the fighting to save his friends. Benevidez’s account of his remarkable, almost superhuman performance in combat is taken from his autobiography, Medal of Honor: One Man’s Journey from Poverty and Prejudice.
I WAS AT A CHURCH SERVICE. A chaplain was using the hood of a jeep as the altar. The first I knew that anyone was in trouble, I heard the clattering of weapons over the radio and a voice begging for help.
I ran for the airstrip, knowing they would need all the help they could get. Everyone was gathered around the radio, listening for news. We learned that one of the choppers, piloted by Warrant Officer Curry, had gone down, but that a second pilot had stopped to pick up the crew and they were headed back.
One chopper returned. It was badly shot up, but no one seemed to be injured. The second chopper to come in, though, was a whole different story. The pilots flew in, landing as fast as they could with their beat-up chopper. For a moment I stood there, staring at the chopper. I didn’t see how it could still fly.
That’s when I saw Michael Craig, the door gunner for that chopper. He had taken a couple of hits, and I knew that he was going to die. He was only nineteen years old. We had celebrated his birthday just two months earlier.
I helped them take Michael out of the helicopter; then I sat with him on the ground. I put my arms around him and called for help. His pilot was Roger Waggie and he joined me. Michael was still conscious and in great pain, gasping for breath.
Michael was like our son or little brother. We all loved him. “Oh, my God, my mother and father…” he said as I held him. Then he died, right there in my arms, his parents’ only child. I lowered Craig’s body and turned to the co-pilot of the chopper. “Who’s in trouble down there?”
Waggie told me it was Wright’s team, and I felt my heart sink. Those were my brothers, and there wasn’t much anyone could do to help them. My mind seemed to explode.
No one was giving up. After changing out a few parts, one of the pilots, Larry McKibben, announced he was going back in. While they were working on the chopper, members of the different crews compared notes about what they had seen. Each of them claimed there were more NVA [North Vietnamese Army] down there than the man before him had.
I had to go with McKibben. When I heard his chopper start, I jumped in and buckled up. “You’re going to need a bellyman,” I told him. “I’m it.”
Midway there, I wondered what I was really doing. I hadn’t really thought my actions through before I got on the chopper. But once I could hear the cracking of guns below me, I began to think. I needed a plan.
“I don’t think I can get down there,” McKibben said. “It’s just too hot.”
That’s when I really made up my mind. I couldn’t leave them down there. We had to do something. Everyone had been trying and trying hard, of course, but there had to be a way. I just couldn’t sit there and listen to my buddies die on the radio. “I’ll get down there,” I promised McKibben. “Just get me as close as you can.” My fear was gone. I can’t explain what happened inside me. The best way to express my actions is “autopilot.” It seemed that all I had been taught in my entire lifetime just kicked in and my body went on autopilot.
McKibben flew straight into the gunfire, zigzagging the chopper and making every attempt to dodge the bullets that were being fired at the aircraft. I crossed myself one last time, threw a bag of medical supplies out the doorway, and rolled out with nothing but my buddies on my mind.
Gunships above us were diving and firing in a desperate effort to draw enemy fire away from us. I managed to get safely to a treeline, but I hadn’t been on the ground more than a few seconds when the first bullet hit my leg. To be honest, I thought it was a thorn until I took a good look at it. That’s how pumped up I was. The gunships overhead were now out of ammo and were almost out of fuel. They headed back to Loc Ninh to rearm and refuel.
I found Mousseau first, and even though I knew the team was in trouble, I was shocked by what I saw. Mousseau had taken a round in the eye and in the shoulder. His right eye had been blown out of its socket, and his eyeball was hanging down on his cheek. He had dragged himself to a tree and propped himself up against it, running out of energy. But he was a good soldier, and he could still fire his weapon. He was determined to keep going. The CIDG’s [Civilian Irregular Defense Group] were in what seemed to be a pool of blood, but everyone seemed to be patched up as well as could be expected.
I used Mousseau’s radio to call McKibben. “You better come get us fast,” I said. “We’re in real bad shape.”
The firing had died down some. I couldn’t see any of the enemy, and I figured that the gunship strikes might have slowed them down. But I did see O’Connor, and he indicated that two of them were still alive.
I told O’Connor that we were going to get out. “We’re going to live. We don’t have permission to die yet. Not here.” He and the other survivor, his interpreter, half dragged themselves toward us, but suddenly the firing started up again, and I motioned them back.
That’s when I took another round, in my thigh. I wondered how I was going to be able to walk back to the chopper, but I sent green smoke up to signal McKibben anyway, and yelled for everyone to run for the chopper.
Everyone who could make it got in. The crew inside dragged the men into the chopper, but O’Connor and the interpreter were still out there. I ran along the treeline, spraying it with an AK-47 until I reached O’Connor. McKibben and the chopper were right behind me.
“What does Wright still have on him?” I asked O’Connor. He told me Wright had been carrying the Standard Operating Instructions (SOI), some maps, and the intelligence-gathering device. I knew the documents were classified, and if I left them on his body, they would fall into enemy hands. I would have to get them. There was no choice.
I tried to get the interpreter to his feet, but he couldn’t make it. He begged me not to leave him, and I promised I wouldn’t. I told him to crawl toward O’Connor, and for both of them to get to the chopper. Then I went looking for the SOI.
I needed the documents, but I also needed Wright. I had no intention of leaving him there like that. But as I was crying and dragging him toward the chopper, a third shot caught me square in the back. I dropped my friend’s body and fell forward.
I guess I was knocked unconscious. When I woke up, I rolled onto my stomach and got to my knees. I had a hard time breathing and I was soaked in blood. I knew I was going to have to leave Wright. I didn’t have the strength to carry him. But when I turned to run to the chopper, I saw that it was nothing more than a smoking mess. It had crashed to the ground just before I had passed out.
McKibben was dead, I knew that much. The co-pilot, Fernan, ran from around the nose. He had a blood-covered tree branch sticking out of his ear. He was waving a gun…dazed and in pain.
O’Connor and the interpreter were lying about ten feet from the crash. They hadn’t made it all the way there. A CIDG, who seemed to be only mildly wounded, also lay on the ground. I sent him to get O’Connor’s radio, certain he was dead, but I was mistaken. He called that he was okay.
Five men, including Mousseau, had survived the crash. They were hanging out of the chopper’s tail, returning enemy fire. I knew I had to get them out of there. The NVA could have easily blown up the whole chopper with them inside. When we got the men out, I shot out the radio so it could no longer transmit.
We tried to set up a perimeter around a small clump of trees. We divided into two groups, and I followed Mousseau’s team. I called for heavy air support, and when it came, I dispensed morphine shots. One of the CIDGs who was badly wounded pleaded with me to kill him. The poor guy’s guts were hanging out, and with the sun and wind, they were drying up. Man, that’s a tough thing to take.
Our air force forward air controller was Lieutenant Robin Tornow, who was now overhead. He had located two F-100s, with ordnance on board, in the area being flown by Captains Howard “Howie” Hanson and Robert Knopoka. He was calling them as the ground battle kept getting worse.
Tornow called out, “This is a Daniel Boone tactical emergency. I say again. This is a Daniel Boone tactical emergency.”
Captains Hanson and Knopoka had taken off from Phan Rang Air-base, Republic of South Vietnam, on a preplanned strike mission targeted somewhere north of Saigon. Their call signs were “Bobcat” followed by two numerical digits.
Their mission was uneventful until they were about to drop their ordnance on the preplanned target. Just before they received clearance to drop, they heard Tornow on the UHF “guard channel” requesting immediate assistance for “U.S. troops in heavy contact.” That was the highest priority request and always brought U.S. fighters to those in contact.
“Howie” Hanson, as flight lead, contacted the forward air controller and was told to vector north into an area where they were generally not permitted to fly. That area was Cambodia.
With FAC clearance they “screamed” across the border from South Vietnam into Cambodia and were the first fighters on the scene. Tornow, at great personal risk, “hung tight” and vectored the F-100s to the target.
The following minutes belonged to TAC AIR and gunship strike after strike after strike. They were pouring it on the PZ and back into the woodlines and the clearing in front of us that intersected with the small road.
Branches, slivers of wood, metal, dirt and body parts were stinging us from the percussion caused by the bombing. We could feel the tremendous heat of the afterburners of the F-100s. That’s how low they were flying.
Gunships were diving and diving between the passes of the jets. The air support was like a swarm of killer bees attacking us. It later reminded me of that passage of scripture from the Book of Revelations about the sky turning black with locusts.
Through the middle of this moment of hell came a lone slick that touched down about twenty to thirty meters away. We knew that this was our last hope to leave alive. We loaded the last of our ammunition. This was it. Now or never.
I got to O’Connor and gave him his third shot of morphine. I also took another shot in the leg. We were under heavy fire again, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to us, even though I tried to reassure O’Connor. He must’ve thought I was losing it because I don’t think any of us really thought we were going to get out of there.
We were surrounded. There was no way we could fire back at the NVA because it was impossible to tell where their shots were coming from. They seemed to be coming from everywhere. We had no way of knowing until later that our LZ was surrounded by over 350 NVA and thirty crew-served weapons (machine guns).
The air attack managed to stop the assault for a few moments, but it was long enough for that single chopper to lower right in front of us, and a Special Forces medic, Sergeant Sammons, ran to us from the aircraft. Roger Waggie and his newly formed crew of volunteers, WO Bill Darling as crew chief and WO Smith as door gunner, came to our rescue. Everyone had come to the rescue. What I saw was the American fighting man at his best.
The two of us carried or dragged as many of the men as we could. But the NVA were firing directly at the chopper, shooting the men as they were lifted aboard. Two of the men were shot in the back as they tried to crawl to safety inside the chopper. I could barely see through the matted blood in my eyes due to shrapnel wounds on my face and head. Waggie’s chopper was badly shot up. He and his co-pilot were shooting through their front windshield with their thirty-eight pistols, while Darling and the door gunner and Smith were firing the M-60s at separate groups of NVA charging from the sides. Darling and Smith had volunteered to man a gun because they knew we were running out of men, and as officers they didn’t have to volunteer for this situation. All I know is that because they did, soldiers would live.
I made another trip to find Mousseau. He was lying in the grass. I tried to carry him to the chopper. I didn’t even notice when one of the NVA soldiers, lying on the ground, got to his feet. I also didn’t notice when he slammed his rifle butt into the back of my head. I turned to look at him. Both of us were surprised, I because I hadn’t seen him, and he, because I had turned around after he had delivered the blow, but he reacted quickly and hit me again. I fell, my head swimming in pain.
I now had only one weapon with me, my Special Forces knife. I reached for it, and when I did, he pointed his bayonet at the front of my belly. Fortunately, he hesitated, and it gave me enough time to get to my feet. He sliced my left arm with the bayonet, and I shouted to O’Connor to shoot him. But he was too drugged to move, so I did the only thing I could. I stabbed him with every bit of strength I had left, and when he died, I left my SF knife in him. The last round in my stomach had exposed my intestines, and I was trying to hold them in my hands. I could see Mousseau lying on the floor, staring at me with his one good eye. I reached down and clasped his hand and prayed that he would make it until we reached Saigon, where the medics could help him. Sadly, he would be among the approximately two hundred men who died on both sides during that battle.
I hoped that LeRoy was with us, that at least his body was going home to his family. I had loaded some bodies on the chopper, and I prayed that his was among them. The problem was that I couldn’t always see what I was doing because I was bleeding profusely, and the blood obscured my vision.
How Waggie flew that chopper is a miracle itself. No instruments were left, badly shot up, the cabin floor ankle-deep in blood, and we were headed in the wrong direction. Some air force jets showed up and turned us around for home.
Later I learned that LeRoy did make it out of the jungle. Sergeant Rodolfo “Banzai” Montalvo led a platoon of Chinese Nung mercenaries into the area the next day on a body recovery mission. He located LeRoy and the other dead CIDGs.
Banzai told me that the NVA had been “waiting” for us that day. He said that he counted approximately thirty foxholes with crew-served weapons around the LZ and more dead NVAs than he had time to count. As they were attacked by NVAs and had to leave the area, he observed that the entire area was a carnage of dead bodies.
My next semiconscious memory was that of lying on the ground outside the chopper. I couldn’t move or speak. I was in deep shock, but I knew that the medics were placing me in a body bag. They thought I was dead, and I couldn’t respond. To this day I can still hear the sound of the snaps being closed on that green bag.
My eyes were blinded. My jaws were broken. I had over thirty-seven puncture wounds. My intestines were exposed. Jerry Cottingham recognized my face in the body bag before it was closed. I remember Jerry screaming, “That’s Benavidez. Get a doc!” When the doctor placed his hand on my chest to feel for a heartbeat, I spat into his face. He quickly reversed my condition from dead to “He won’t make it, but we’ll try.”
I was truly once again totally in God’s hands.