![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/3\/3d\/MSG_Benavidez.image.jpg\/500px-MSG_Benavidez.image.jpg\")
\nMSgt, U.S. Army \u2014 Vietnam War<\/strong><\/p>\n Roy P. Benavidez was born on August 5, 1935, in Lindenau, Texas, near Cuero in DeWitt County. Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by an uncle and worked as a migrant farm laborer, leaving school early to support his family. He joined the Texas Army National Guard in 1952 and entered the active-duty Army in 1955, eventually volunteering for the Special Forces and earning the Green Beret.<\/p>\n During his first Vietnam tour in 1965, Benavidez stepped on a land mine and suffered severe leg and back injuries. Doctors told him he would never walk again, but through a grueling year of rehabilitation he returned to duty \u2014 and to Vietnam with the 5th Special Forces Group.<\/p>\n On May 2, 1968, west of Loc Ninh, a 12-man Special Forces reconnaissance team was pinned down by a North Vietnamese battalion of roughly a thousand men. Benavidez, monitoring the battle by radio at the forward operating base, voluntarily boarded a returning helicopter armed with only a knife. What followed became known as “Six Hours in Hell”: he repeatedly ran through enemy fire to reposition the wounded, directed airstrikes, loaded the dead and wounded onto extraction helicopters, and recovered classified documents \u2014 sustaining 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds. He saved at least eight lives. Evacuated as dead and zipped into a body bag, he spit in a doctor’s face to prove he was alive.<\/p>\n Originally awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, his decoration was upgraded to the Medal of Honor after an eyewitness came forward; President Ronald Reagan presented it at the Pentagon on February 24, 1981. Benavidez retired in 1976 and devoted his life to speaking at schools and civic groups, testified before Congress in 1983 against cuts to veterans’ disability benefits, and wrote three books. He died on November 29, 1998, in San Antonio and is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. The Navy cargo ship USNS Benavidez<\/em> and the Army’s NCO Academy at Fort Benning bear his name.<\/p>\n Sources: Wikipedia<\/a> \u00b7 Congressional Medal of Honor Society<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n