Roy Benavides

Master Sergeant Roy Benavides was a true hard charger out of Cuero, Texas. On May 2, 1968, A squad of Green Berets were out on a reconnaissance mission in Vietnam. Little did they know that they were walking into the fight of their lives. Moments after they landed, the 12-man recon team found themselves surrounded by over 1,000 NVA soldiers.

Roy Benavidez was attending a church service when a bunch of bullet hole ridden helicopters landed with wounded on board. After overhearing the chaotic radio chatter, Benavidez sprang into action. Armed with only his knife and IFAK, Roy jumped on the first helicopter flying back, ready to bring the fight to the enemy.

Immediately the aircraft he was on started to take enemy fire. Once it was known that it would be impossible to land, Benavidez jumped from the helicopter, breaking his fall with the trees below.

It was time to get to work. Benavidez grabbed an AK-47 from a dead combatant and ran almost 100 yards to get to his friends. He was shot in the leg while doing this, but nothing seemed to faze this madman. He pulled wounded men out of the fight, propping them in positions to better return fire as he ran back out to save more men. Roy was shot many times throughout his body, bayoneted in the back, and took shrapnel from a grenade shortly after. He fought until he collapsed from his injuries.

He was able to rescue 8 of his men and his unconscious body was picked up and flown back to base. When they were about to zip his body up in a body bag, he spit in the doctor’s face to let him know that he wasn’t out of the fight yet.

Master Sergeant Roy Benavides served in the US Army for 24 years and received the Medal of Honor for his actions. He still had two pieces of shrapnel in his heart when he received the medal on February 24th, 1981.