14
DELIVERANCE
GREYHOUND THREE CLEARED the trees surrounding the PZ, dropped its nose, and raced east low and fast just above the jungle. In back, Sammons provided first aid, but it amounted to “little more than putting the live people on top of the dead,” according to Darling. “We had so many seriously wounded that the blood flowed out of the helicopter.” They crossed the border into South Vietnam at roughly 6:00 p.m., and Waggie headed straight for Loc Ninh, where medical “Dustoff” helicopters were on standby, poised to transport the wounded to field hospitals.
Of the original twelve-man B-56 team, only O’Connor, Mousseau, Bao, Tuan, and two other CIDG had made it into the slick alive—all were critically wounded. Fernan, the copilot, and Christensen, the crew chief, were the sole survivors from Greyhound One; Christensen, too, was critically wounded.
As they flew out of the PZ, Roy had climbed over the pile of bodies and found a place between the pilots’ seats, where he leaned back against the console. That is where the medics discovered him after the helicopter landed at Loc Ninh, his body motionless, eyes crusted shut with blood, arms crossed over his gaping abdominal wound.
Roy was lifted off Greyhound Three and placed with the dead beside the tarmac a few yards from the artillery battery at the Special Forces camp where he had—only a few hours earlier—been on his way to grab some chow.
In his haste to leave no one behind, Roy had accidentally loaded three dead NVA soldiers onto the helicopter. Now the five-foot-six-inch American lay beside them as their bodies were placed one by one into body bags—a tragic finale for Roy Benavidez, who devoted his life to his country only to be mistaken for an enemy soldier.
But being mistaken for the enemy wasn’t nearly as tragic as being mistaken for dead. Roy could hear what was going on around him, but he was frozen in shock—unable to move, unable to open his eyes, unable to speak—unable to do anything as he was stuffed unceremoniously into a suffocating black body bag. “The zipper was coming up,” Roy recounted, “and I couldn’t tell this guy, ‘I’m still alive!’ ”
Then he heard the familiar voice of Green Beret master sergeant Jerry Cottingham exclaim, “That’s no damn gook. That’s Benavidez!”
Assuming that Roy was dead, Cottingham called a medic over to confirm. The medic knelt over the body bag, rested his hand on Roy’s chest, and checked the pulse on his neck. “When I felt that doctor’s hand on my chest,” Roy later said, “with all the energy I could summon, I spit at him. Actually, I sprayed a mixture of blood, spit, and mucus.”
“Stop!” the medic said to the soldier about to pull the zipper shut. And the body bag was replaced with a stretcher.
EN ROUTE to Loc Ninh, Waggie on Greyhound Three reported that he wasn’t certain he’d gotten all the survivors. When Ewing on Greyhound Two heard this, he knew instantly what had to be done.
“Guys,” he said to his crew over the intercom, “we’re going to do a sweep, make sure we have everybody. Take a good look around; I’ll get in real close.”
As Ewing set up for final approach to the PZ, the waves of NVA he’d seen earlier seemed to have dispersed. U.S. forces would often destroy downed aircraft with a massive air strike once survivors had been extracted, and the enemy had most likely moved back into the tree line—or down into tunnels and bunkers if this was indeed a major command complex—in anticipation.
Crew Chief Paul Tagliaferri got on the intercom. “I’m gonna get out and take a quick look,” he told Ewing. “If there’s anybody left alive and I can’t move them to the aircraft, I’m gonna stay with them till help comes.”
“Tag,” Ewing replied, “there’s nobody else coming.”
Tagliaferri did not respond.
They began to take fire as Greyhound Two came in fast and touched down. Tagliaferri jumped out with two M16s, first-aid kits, and extra ammo and ran directly to Greyhound One and crawled inside while Ewing hovered closer, drawing fire, and his gunner strafed the tree line to the west. Looking toward the downed slick, Ewing could see his friend Larry McKibben slumped over to the side.
In Greyhound One, Tagliaferri checked to confirm that Fournier and McKibben were dead and dashed around the wreckage and surrounding grass, calling out for survivors. After nearly a minute, he sprinted back to Greyhound Two and jumped on board.
With one last look at McKibben, Ewing ascended out of the PZ and headed east. Staving off tears, he asked his copilot, First Lieutenant Bob Portman, to take the controls.
Unbeknownst to Ewing, the 162nd Assault Helicopter Company, the Vultures, was on the way from Ho Ngoc Tao to bring home the dead. McKibben had many friends in the 162nd since the Vultures had been his first assignment in Vietnam, and five of their helicopters would retrieve his body—along with those of Fournier, Wright, and the remaining CIDG—from the PZ under heavy fire as truckloads of NVA reinforcements approached from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Though the aircraft took multiple hits, there were no casualties.
At Loc Ninh, helicopters were rushing the survivors, many fighting for their lives, to various field hospitals. In and out of consciousness, Roy was in the back of one, on a stretcher beside Lloyd Mousseau, who had fought hard the entire battle, receiving his most severe wounds from enemy fire only as he climbed on board Greyhound Three.
Mousseau, who had sent his daughter, Kathy, a card for her third birthday a few days before the mission, died holding Roy’s hand shortly before landing at the 93rd Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. He was twenty-six years old.
THE FOLLOWING morning, May 3, 1968, Ewing and a contingent of 240th pilots and crewmen crammed into the back of a slick for the half-hour flight to Long Binh.
Dan Christensen, McKibben’s crew chief, was in a long row of patients in the post-op ward. His face was bruised and swollen, his jaw wired shut, and his legs bandaged from the bullet and shrapnel he’d taken before they’d crashed.
When Ewing asked Christensen if he needed anything, he nodded. “Do you know what happened to my .38?” he managed to scribble on a piece of paper.
The disappearance of his sidearm had been haunting Christensen since he’d regained consciousness in the PZ, watching the world blow up around him. The impact of his helicopter slamming into the ground had cracked his helmet and broken his jaw, but as a crew chief, he’d been taught to protect the aircraft and pilots at all costs, and to never surrender his personal weapon. He wanted to be sure he hadn’t let down McKibben or Fernan. No matter how deep he searched his memory, however, he could not figure out what had happened to his gun.
“Can you find it?” Christensen wrote to Ewing.
Ewing asked a nurse the procedure for recovering a patient’s weapon and was directed to a locker but found no revolvers. A clerk told him it might have been tangled up in the clothing that was cut off and discarded in a dumpster behind the field hospital. Following the clerk’s directions, Ewing stepped out of the hospital into the stagnant, hot, humid air and made his way to two metal dumpsters. He swung open the metal lid of one and was hit by a stench that made him retch.
“The dumpster was three-quarters full,” says Ewing. “Bloody clothes, burnt boots, cracked flight helmets, old bandages, shit, puke, and rot baking in the sun.” Repulsed but determined, he climbed inside and began poking through the gore. Only a few minutes into the task, he was nauseous to the verge of passing out.
Standing tall, trying to get some air, he saw the hospital door open. Another clerk lugged a thirty- or forty-gallon trash can to the other dumpster, swung open the lid, and strained to tip the can’s contents in. That dumpster was also approaching full.
“How often do you empty these?” Ewing asked.
“Every other day, Sir. They’ll get this stuff tomorrow.”
So this was from one day, he thought.
In that moment, Ewing was “done.” Not just from looking for the .38, but also from everything about the war. He was “empty.”
He got out of the dumpster, closed the lid, and walked away down a dusty red-dirt road. A thunderstorm opened up, and Warrant Officer Jerry Ewing climbed up on the hood of a parked jeep, buried his face in his hands, and began to wail.
WHEN O’CONNOR woke up after surgery in intensive care, a nurse pointed out two of the other survivors to him: Tuan and Roy. All three had outgoing drainage tubes and incoming IVs and bandages virtually from head to toe. Tuan’s arm had been amputated.
Roy lay in a bed across the hall, his jaw wired shut like Christensen’s, and too far away to talk anyway, so the two men waved to each other by wiggling their toes. They remained in intensive care for several days, and one morning Roy awoke to find O’Connor’s bed empty. He didn’t want to ask, but he assumed that O’Connor had died in the night. That was how it was.
On May 20, 1968, Roy left the hospital at Long Binh; made the journey inside the hull of a medical transport C-130 to the hospital at Tachikawa Air Base, Japan; then to another medical transport to the United States and San Antonio, Texas, where he was wheeled on a gurney to Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center. Unlike 1965, he was awake and aware throughout the trip. Lala held his face in her hands and kissed him, refusing to let on how shocked she was by the extent of his wounds. She had received a Western Union telegram from the secretary of the Army on May 5 that stated, “Your husband, staff sergeant Roy P. Benavidez, was slightly wounded in Vietnam on 2 May 1968, as a result of hostile action. He received multiple fragment wounds to the face, the neck, and the abdomen. Since he is not, repeat, not seriously wounded, no further reports will be furnished.”
The same day Lala received the telegram, seventeen-year-old Debbie McKibben was studying for her senior high school year final exams. Her mother, Maxine, was making dinner in the kitchen. Debbie heard a knock on the door, opened it, and when she saw the officer standing there, “It was as though an electrical shock had gone through my body,” she says.
Maxine asked the officer if he would stay with them after he delivered the terrible news, until Cecil got home from work in a few hours. She offered the man coffee, then sat on the living room couch and held Debbie. A couple of hours later, Cecil opened the door with a smile. “Then his face, his whole body, just sagged under the weight of the news. I only remember him saying ‘No,’ the second he saw us and the officer. He knew,” says Debbie.
Debbie retreated to her bedroom and buried her face in her pillow, remembering Larry sitting there beside her almost two years before—but it seemed like just yesterday—telling her, “I’m going to go fight communism there so you don’t have to face it here. I’m not afraid—I want to go.”
ROY HAD sustained more than thirty wounds and for the next year would continue to undergo extensive surgeries to repair his left arm and hand; remove half of his left lung; and extract shrapnel, bullet, and bone fragments from in and around his kidney, liver, intestines, colon, lungs, and heart.
As soon as he was able, he wrote a letter to Roger Waggie to thank him and the other pilots and crew who had extracted the men on May 2; he also requested the address for Larry McKibben’s family. A couple weeks went by with no response, and he wrote Waggie again, concerned. More weeks passed with no response.
At the end of July 1968, a second lieutenant was walking the ward, handing out Purple Hearts to healing soldiers “like prizes at a carnival show,” says Roy. “It was nothing like I would have expected for these men who had taken a bullet or worse for their country.” When he reached Roy’s bed, he read the clipboard and handed Roy four Purple Hearts and a small box containing a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest award a soldier can receive, second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor.
“Congratulations, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “With all due respect, Sir,” replied Roy, “it takes more than a second lieutenant to award this medal.”
On September 10, 1968, almost four months into his stay at Brooke Army Medical Center, Roy stood at attention beside his bed and saluted General Westmoreland, who had been promoted to chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and had scheduled time to visit the wounded while on official business at Fort Sam Houston. While members of Roy’s family and a small contingent of officers and reporters looked on, Westmoreland said, “Many years ago, I met [Staff Sergeant Benavidez] at Fort Gordon, Georgia. I was impressed with his appearance. I was impressed with the self-discipline that he displayed. I was impressed with him as a soldier. I said, ‘Sergeant Benavidez, you should go Airborne.’ He accepted my advice. He went Airborne, and he’s still a paratrooper, I believe. Aren’t you, Sergeant?”
“Yes, Sir,” Roy said, astonished by the general’s recall. “And I will be one, Sir, for a long time.”
Westmoreland went on to read the citation that began “For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam…” and ended with “Because of Sergeant Benavidez’s indomitable spirit, the lives of eight men were saved.”
Roy shook Westmoreland’s hand and stood for a photo with Lala and his brother Roger, his forced smile betraying his sadness. He was proud of the medal, proud that he’d honored the Benavidez name, that he’d performed his duty for his country—but in his mind he was back in Cambodia with O’Connor, Wright, Mousseau, Christensen, Fernan, Fournier, McKibben, and the CIDG who had fought alongside them and lost their lives. They were the real heroes. And what of Waggie? Roy wondered if he would ever hear from him or if he, too, had been killed in a subsequent operation.
At the end of September, Roy finally received a letter from Vietnam:
Dear Sir,
I know that you are disappointed in me but hope you understand. After your second letter, I left [to fly a mission at] the Cambodian border. We had 2 ships go down and lost the entire crew of one. Bill Fernan, who was flying with Larry McKibben when he was killed, was the ship that didn’t come back. We did recover one crew. I left Bear Cat 10, July and have only been here once since. I went on R & R to Hawaii on 13 August. While I was there, we had 2 pilots killed and a crew chief. My roommate was killed June 24. We lost 6 pilots that day. It has really been bad. I am the only one left from the platoon that Larry knew. Hope you understand my situation and forgive me for not answering promptly. We are having a lot of action here. Seems like they are everywhere.
Take care.
Waggie
ON NUMEROUS occasions during his stay in the Fort Sam Houston hospital, Roy was advised to retire from the Army for medical reasons. He refused. A year and one week after he’d jumped on the helicopter at Loc Ninh, Roy checked out of the hospital on May 9, 1969. He had in hand orders for temporary duty with the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and a copy of the Winter 1968 edition of Tour
365, a magazine given to departing soldiers at the end of their tours in Vietnam.
An Army-prepared history of Vietnam and the U.S. involvement through 1968, Tour 365 began with a letter from the new commanding general in Vietnam, Creighton W. Abrams: “Your tour of duty with the United States Army is ended. May your trip home and reunion with family and friends be the pleasant happy occasion you have anticipated. You go home with my best wishes. As Veterans of this war, you can now look back with perspective on your experiences and know the trying and difficult tasks inherent in fighting to protect the freedom of peace-loving people against Communist invaders. You know of the local Vietcong terrorists who kill and maim their own neighbors…. People at home will want to hear your story of the war. Tell it.”
The magazine ended with a closing letter from Frank T. Mildren, the deputy commanding lieutenant general in Vietnam, who wrote: “You may leave this land of Vietnam—the jungles, mountains, and coastal plains—with that inner satisfaction of knowing you have served the cause of free men everywhere. The Republic of Vietnam and, indeed, our own nation, are greatly in your debt for your efforts. Now you are going home to rejoin your family and friends. They are proud of you and are anxiously awaiting your return.”
In direct contradiction to those words, Roy’s orders advised him not to wear his uniform at airports, train stations, bus depots, and essentially anywhere in public, because there had been a number of conflicts between returning veterans and those who opposed the war. They were taking their frustrations out on the soldiers, calling them “baby killers,” spitting on their boots, and perpetrating other hostile acts.
But Roy continued to wear his uniform proudly. He wore it when he drove to Jacinto City outside Houston and knocked on the door of the house where Larry McKibben had grown up.
Inside, he embraced Cecil and Maxine and held the framed photo of their son they took off the wall to show him, as well as the Distinguished Service Cross they had been presented. He told them how sorry he was for their loss, showed them his own DSC, and said he would not have been able to do what he did—and eight men would not have survived—if it weren’t for their son’s bravery. He said to them what he couldn’t say to Larry McKibben, what very few Vietnam veterans would hear upon their return: “Thank you.”
AFTER ONE parachute jump—and one painful landing—at Fort Devens, Roy decided it was his last. His body couldn’t take it. Six months into his temporary duty at Fort Devens, he moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, at the request of Major General Robert R. Linville, Commanding General, 1st Infantry Division—whom he had chauffeured in the past—to become the general’s full-time driver. There, on November 20, 1969, Lala gave birth to their second daughter, Yvette Benavidez.
Roy reenlisted for another six years in 1971, the same year that, on April 24, two hundred thousand people marched on Washington, DC, to protest the war. In early 1972, Roy moved his family back to Fort Sam Houston, where General Patrick Cassidy was in need of an experienced chauffeur. Roy and Lala’s son, Noel Benavidez, was born on August 26 of that same year.
General Cassidy retired in 1974 and gave Roy the opportunity to choose his next assignment. Roy had dreamed of bringing his career full circle by advising and training Special Forces and infantrymen. A new readiness group was being formed at Fort Sam Houston to do just that, and while it would be a physically demanding job, working in the field among young, fit soldiers, he was up for the challenge. General Cassidy made the recommendation, and Roy secured a position that kept him and his family at Fort Sam Houston, not far from home in El Campo.
Roy lived with a great deal of pain as he worked in the field, but his dedication and performance remained exemplary, as evidenced by the letters of recommendation for promotion that filled his personnel file, from high-ranking officers such as Major General Linville, who wrote: “As a true soldier of honest dedication, there is no one I would recommend more highly.” That sentiment was echoed by Brigadier General John A. Seitz, Colonel Wilfrid K. G. Smith, and Colonel R. D. Tice, all of whom applauded Roy’s character, dedication, and commitment to his fellow soldiers.
Perhaps most telling were the comments of Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Cavazos, who wrote of Roy’s duties as the assistant operations sergeant in the largest brigade in the 1st Infantry Division: “The constant requirements would have overwhelmed a lesser man. Despite the discomfort that SFC Benavidez suffered due to wounds received in two tours, he always gave his utmost in any task. SFC Benavidez has been a sterling example. He conducted himself at all times with a demeanor that elicited the admiration and respect of everyone. He is highly decorated and the courage that he displays at all times under the most trying of circumstances marks him as a true soldier’s soldier. His initiative, professional knowledge, and readiness to assist his fellow soldiers more than qualifies him for [promotion].”
Roy had risen to the rank of master sergeant and was the senior enlisted adviser to the team readiness group. He was thirty-nine years old and, because of the numerous surgical and battle scars that covered his body, was known by his fellow NCOs as “the walking road map.” He would become noticeably embarrassed when his service in Vietnam was brought up or the Distinguished Service Cross he’d wear on formal occasions was remarked upon. If he was referred to as a hero, he was quick to say, “I appreciate that, but the real heroes didn’t come home.”
Some of Roy’s superiors, concerned by the noticeable suffering he put himself through to push the troops in their training regimen, agreed to take steps that might speed up his honorable discharge without dishonoring the man, according to a fellow NCO. A major who worked closely with Roy wrote: “[It] became apparent to the members of the team that Benavidez would not admit that he was physically unable to climb, run, carry heavy loads, or keep up with the rifle platoons and squads during rigorous field training exercises…. Although [he] made every effort to hold up his end of the log, he could not, and the team made adjustments to place him in situations which would spare him from physical efforts which would aggravate his extensive injuries.”
Another major said of Roy: “[Though] Benavidez never once complained, his physical condition did not permit him to function satisfactorily. Any lesser man would not have even attempted to accomplish the mission. Due to this man’s sincere devotion to his country and the U.S. Army, it is a disservice to have [him] on active duty and not be able to perform. He has all but paid the supreme price—life—through his heroism in Vietnam.”
IN MARCH 1969, after the NVA launched a series of rocket attacks against Saigon, President Nixon authorized Operation Menu, a covert, massive bombing campaign that targeted NVA base areas in Cambodia and Laos, most of which had been identified by SOG recon teams. The area in the Fishhook where the May 2, 1968, mission took place was bombed repeatedly after being designated one of the most likely locations of COSVN (NVA headquarters).
Two years later, in 1971, the New York Times began publishing excerpts from the Pentagon Papers, making public the top-secret study compiled by the Department of Defense outlining U.S. military and political involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. Congress voted to withdraw troops by the end of the year, but the war raged into 1972, with the NVA launching the Easter Offensive against the South Vietnamese in March and President Nixon retaliating a few days later with a massive bombing in North Vietnam.
The majority of American ground forces left Vietnam in August 1972, though thousands of airmen, support personnel, and Special Forces “advisers” remained in-country. In November Nixon was reelected president for a second term, and by January 1973 a cease-fire was signed by representatives of the United States and both North and South Vietnam, with the United States agreeing to withdraw remaining combat troops. North Vietnam released nearly six hundred American prisoners of war in March, and on the 29th, the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was officially declared over.
South Vietnam would continue to fight for two more years, conceding defeat only after the capital of Saigon was captured on April 30, 1975. Le Duan, the current leader of the reorganized Vietnamese Communist Party, unified Vietnam under a communist government, whose repressive social policies included “reeducation camps,” hard labor, and executions.
In December 1986 new leadership enacted economic and political reforms; though the Communist Party continued to hold all political power, private ownership of farms and factories was encouraged, along with economic deregulation and foreign investment: a communist government with a capitalist economy, like China.
The impact of the Vietnam War was far-reaching. Total American deaths numbered 60,000; wounded, over 150,000; and more than 2,500 servicemen missing in action. At least 1,500 of them remain unaccounted for today. Though numbers vary greatly, casualties for South Vietnam are estimated to be at least 220,000 killed and over a million wounded, while NVA and VC forces purportedly suffered losses of over a million and an untold number of wounded. Hundreds of thousands of civilians also lost their lives across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of Pol Pot continued to gain strength and support during the Vietnam War, especially after Prince Sihanouk was deposed in March 1970 in a coup d’état led by General Lon Nol. Sihanouk set up a government-in-exile in China, aligning himself with China, North Vietnam, and the Khmer Rouge to resist the Lon Nol government, which was backed by the United States.
The resulting civil war lasted five years, until April 1975, when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge overthrew the Lon Nol government and initiated social engineering with the goal of a classless peasant society. Over the next four years, under the totalitarian dictatorship of Pol Pot, executions, forced labor, malnutrition, and poor medical care resulted in the deaths of an estimated one to three million Cambodians—as much as 25 percent of the Cambodian population—whose bodies were buried in mass graves that became known as “killing fields.” The government of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge was overthrown by Vietnamese forces in April 1979 during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War.
FROM FORT Bragg to Fort Sam Houston, word about the events of May 2, 1968, had gotten around during the 1970s, and within the tight circles of the Special Forces community, Roy Benavidez was becoming a legend.
He brushed it off as war buddies telling stories over a beer at the NCO club, but a single subject always came up: Why had Roy not received the Congressional Medal of Honor? “Some thought I had,” he said. “Others thought I should have, and a few had heard I had at least been recommended for it. But the discussions had almost always been over a drink, and I really never thought it was more than just talk.”
Eventually Roy made an inquiry about the original documentation. The response he received from the Army Decorations Board was that they were unable to locate any documentation aside from the citation of the Distinguished Service Cross. Colonel Jim Dandridge, a former Special Forces intelligence officer who had been involved with the Daniel Boone mission with MACV-SOG and was based with Roy at Fort Sam Houston, told Roy he was certain that Lieutenant Colonel Drake had put him in for the Medal of Honor. Furthermore, he knew Drake was currently the director of plans, training, and security at the U.S. Army School/Training Center at Fort McClellan in Alabama.
Dandridge invited Roy to his office, and he rang Drake on the spot and handed the phone to Roy.
It was April 1, 1974. The last time Roy had seen Drake was at the 93rd Evac Hospital in Long Binh when he had visited with both O’Connor and Roy in the intensive care unit.
“Benavidez?” he said now. “I thought you died.”
“No, Sir,” Roy replied. “Not quite.”
Drake clarified that he had put Roy in for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) knowing that the Medal of Honor required massive documentation he didn’t have. Even the DSC had been no easy award to obtain. “All I was able to put together was some sketchy material from a few people,” Drake told Roy, “including a couple of chopper pilots. You and O’Connor were gone—I didn’t even know if you survived—and Mousseau and Wright were dead.”
When they got off the phone, Dandridge apologized to Roy. He really thought that Roy’s actions had warranted the Medal of Honor, and he was sorry for the misinformation. Once Roy had left, Dandridge called Drake back, and Drake put the wheels in motion by writing a recommendation to upgrade Roy’s DSC to the Medal of Honor, citing new evidence not known at the time. The Army Decorations Board declined, stating insufficient evidence.
ROY CONTINUED to struggle while performing his job. After his annual physical on October 16, 1975, an army doctor wrote: “In my judgment, Master Sergeant Benavidez is not capable of performing the duty of MOS 11B5SLA in combat because of his physical limitations.”
But Roy still wasn’t ready to retire. Although his body was beaten down and he was in constant pain, walked with a limp, and dragged himself through exercises, he requested to be tested for the physical requirements of three military occupational specialties: military policeman, correctional specialist, and special services. The result: “There are no MOS’s for which MSG Benavidez is both physically qualified and technically qualified through experience and/or training.”
Off the record, a doctor told Roy that he not only qualified for, he deserved, disability benefits. “I’m not disabled,” Roy replied. “I can walk. I can still get around.”
“You’re forty years old,” the doctor said. “You’ve got a long life ahead of you, and like it or not, these injuries from your wounds are not going to go away. And it’s all service related.” Roy would likely have to stand before a board and answer questions about his service and medical situation, the doctor explained. “All you have to do is tell the truth. Let them decide.”
And so Roy agreed to a formal hearing on August 4, 1976, relaying to the board his doctors’ reports and injuries, more than thirty in all, each incurred during combat. Bullet, shrapnel, and bayonet wounds, to the joints, organs, and his left eye. The most concerning, chronic “issue” was a shortness of breath that resulted from all the shrapnel remaining in his body.
“I am an adviser,” Roy said. “And this takes a lot of exertion, being out in the field or falling in with the troops in combat situations, setting an example before the enlisted men. It’s embarrassing for a senior noncommissioned officer to fall out in front of his men.” Roy paused for a long moment before continuing. “It’s a bad example.”
“At this time do you have any limited motion in your back?” the board asked him.
“Yes,” Roy answered. “I can bend over with time, touch my toes. I’ve done it because I’m very active, I’ve been doing exercises or PT for twenty-some-odd years, as long as I’ve been in the Army. To me, it hurts my pride even to come before the board, a medical board…but I have to realize that I’m just incapable of doing it, and rather than letting my noncommissioned officers corps down, I might as well step down.”
After an hour of questioning, the board closed for deliberation. Fourteen minutes later, they emerged and found Roy “unfit to perform his duties due to numerous injuries resulting from combat wounds.” The resulting physical disabilities, they recounted, “are permanent and are rated at 80 percent. The board recommends that Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez be permanently retired.”
“I guess I won’t make thirty years,” Roy said to Lala after receiving the decision. To which she replied, “Benavidez, I can’t believe you made twenty. Let’s go home to El Campo.”