Roy Benavidez Birthday
The Texas Veterans Land Board salutes MSG Roy Benavidez today, which would have been his 89th birthday. Benavidez is widely known as a hero, Medal of Honor recipient, and someone who gave back to the community by speaking about patriotism, sacrifice and teamwork, but was also a first-generation American raised by his grandparents in rural Texas.
Benavidez was born outside Cuero, Texas in 1935 to a Mexican sharecropper father and a Yaqui Indian mother. Both died of tuberculosis before Roy’s 8th birthday. He moved in with his grandparents, his younger brother, and eight other cousins in the household, and struggled with school so he dropped out in the seventh grade. After that, he did odd jobs around town to help support his family, including shining shoes at the bus station, working in a tire shop, and helping as a farmhand around the rural community of El Campo.
As soon as he could, he joined the National Guard at age 17. When he turned 20, he enlisted in the regular Army. Just a few years later, after marrying his wife, Hilaria, he joined the 82nd Airborne Division. From there, he trained to become Army Special Forces and was awarded the green beret.
In 1965, during his first tour in Vietnam, he stepped on a land mine and was seriously injured. Doctors told him he would never walk again, and began preparing medical discharge papers. Meanwhile, every night, Roy would work on his own to learn to walk again. Unknown to his doctors, he would crawl from his bed, use a nearby wall and force his body to stand, starting with just wiggling his toes, learning to push himself up the wall, and finally, taking steps. A year later, he walked out of the hospital and requested to return to Vietnam.
In 1968, he was sent back in-country. One day while he was in the chapel, he heard a radio broadcast that a 12-man Special Forces unit was trapped by a North Vietnamese infantry battalion and were calling for immediate extraction. Armed only with a knife and carrying his medical bag, Roy jumped on a helicopter to respond. He had to jump from the helicopter landing 75 yards away from the pinned down Special Forces team, where he took on gunfire and a grenade blast, resulting in a leg wound and shrapnel to his face, arm and back.
But Roy continued on, reaching the men. Four were already dead and the others were wounded. He directed the wounded in covering fire to keep the North Vietnamese army from overrunning their position. He called in a Huey to extract them, but the helicopter was shot down during the rescue attempt. Roy was wounded again and again. He continued to protect the other wounded men, and finally another helicopter was able to reach them. He carried one man after another to the waiting helicopter, and in the process was personally attacked by a NVA soldier he thought dead. The man jumped up, hit Benavidez in the face with the butt of his gun, breaking his jaw, then stabbed him several times with his bayonet. Roy was able to kill the man with his knife and continued to load the wounded men onto the helicopter. On the helicopter ride, he had to hold in his own intestines and nearly bled to death.
When they returned to base, the doctor who met the helicopter couldn’t feel a pulse, so ordered Benavidez to be placed into a body bag. With his broken jaw, he couldn’t speak to stop it, so he spit blood into the doctor’s face so he would know he was still alive!
Sent to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio again, it took Benavidez over a year to recover. When his wounds were counted, he had 37 holes in him. However, he had saved the lives of 8 men that day.
His commander wanted to put him in for the Medal of Honor, but thought Roy was going to die. So, he put him in for the Distinguished Service Cross instead, thinking that he could at least get that recognition before dying. He was honored with the Distinguished Service Cross in 1968 and left the hospital in 1969.
In 1973, his lieutenant colonel put in for an exemption so that he could still receive the Medal of Honor; while the exemption was authorized, the Army Decorations Board refused to upgrade his medal due to lack of eyewitness testimony. Benavidez believed all present that day who witnessed his heroism were dead by now.
However, Brian O’Connor, the former radioman of Benavidez’ Special Forces unit, was still alive, unbeknownst to Benavidez. He had been airlifted back to the States for medical treatment and was never fully debriefed by the Army, so his testimony had never been taken. Amazingly, while he was living in the Fiji Islands, he took a vacation to Australia and saw a story about Benavidez from the El Campo newspaper that had been picked up by the international press. O’Connor immediately contacted Benavidez and submitted a ten-page report on the “Six Hours of Hell” incident.
In 1981, thirteen years after his heroic actions, Roy Benavidez finally received full recognition from his country when President Reagan presented him with the Medal of Honor. Reagan turned to the press and said, “If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you would not believe it”.
Benavidez, inspired by Reagan to tell his story to schoolchildren, began visiting schools and speaking to groups. He was often asked if he knew then what he knew now, would he still have done the actions he did, and his response was always in the affirmative. “I live by the motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” he would say.
Roy died in 1998 from complications of diabetes, but twenty-five years later, the VLB still salutes the courage and integrity of a soldier like Roy Benavidez, who put saving his Special Forces brothers above his own life.
The VLB is happy to provide any needed help for these American heroes. The mission for the VLB is “to ensure that we offer the very best package of Veterans benefits in the country and those of us who work for the VLB strive to meet those goals every day. For more than 70 years, we have had the honor to serve Veterans, Military Members and their families in Texas, and we look forward to keeping that promise in the years to come.” Call 1–800–252–8387, email VLBinfo@glo.texas.gov, or visit vlb.texas.gov to see the different benefits available.
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