Roy Benavidez was 32 years old on May 2, 1968, when a Special Forces team was surrounded
near Lộc Ninh, Vietnam. Enemy forces closed in from every direction. Helicopters were taking
fire. Men on the ground were wounded and running out of time.
Benavidez volunteered immediately.
He boarded a helicopter armed with a knife and a medical bag. That was it. As the aircraft
hovered under fire, he jumped into the fight. The team he came to save was outnumbered and
pinned down. Evacuation was failing.
For the next 6 hours, Benavidez stayed exposed.
He ran through fire to reach wounded teammates, dragged them to cover, and carried them
toward extraction points. He treated injuries while directing air support and organizing defense.
When helicopters came in, he moved casualties first. When they lifted off, he stayed behind.
He was hit again and again.
By the end of the fight, Benavidez had taken 37 separate wounds. Bullets. Shrapnel. Bayonets.
His body was so damaged that medics believed he was dead. He was placed in a body bag with
others who did not survive.
Then he moved.
Unable to speak, he spit in a doctor’s face to show he was alive.
This was not the first time Benavidez had defied odds. During an earlier tour, he stepped on a
landmine and was told he would never walk again. At night, in secret, he trained himself to walk
anyway. He returned to combat when doctors said he never should.
Recognition did not come quickly. Years passed before his actions were fully reviewed. In 1981,
President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Medal of Honor, stating that if the story were a
movie script, no one would believe it.
Benavidez spent his later years advocating for education and disabled veterans. He died in
1998.
Roy Benavidez did not act to be remembered. He acted because men were trapped and time
was gone. He entered when survival said do not, and he stayed when leaving was possible.
Everyone else came out.
Story based on historical records.