It's the morning of May 2, 1968.
Near Loc Ninh, South Vietnam.
Three Bell UH-1 “Huey” helicopters fly low and fast
over the Vietnamese countryside.
Inside, members of a 12-man Special Forces Recon Team
grip their M-16s as the choppers descend to a clearing
just west of Loc Ninh.
A few feet above the ground they leap from the side door.
With deafening roars the Hueys’ gas turbines lift them up and away
as the dirt and grass swirl violently in the rotor wash.
Now the American servicemen are on their own in hostile territory.
Less than a hundred yards away
nearly 1,000 well camouflaged North Vietnamese soldiers crouch in the treeline.
An eerie stillness hangs heavy
as the Recon Team surveys the area.
Then the silence is shattered by telltale AK-47 cracks and muzzle flashes
as the NVA soldiers open fire with everything they’ve got.
Instinctively hitting the deck,
the team knows they’re seriously outnumbered,
and even worse, the choppers are already gone.
Their mission had been to gather intelligence about NVA and Viet Cong troop strength,
now it’s a matter of life and death.
Streams of hissing AK rounds fly overhead
and pierce the dirt and vegetation all around them.
Within minutes some soldiers are wounded, others killed.
Frantically yelling into the radio,
the squad leader requests an emergency extraction
while the rest return fire the best they can.
Just a few miles away,
the Hueys circle back toward the beleaguered team,
but as they approach the clearing
they’re hammered with small-arms and heavy anti-aircraft fire.
A number of crewmen are seriously wounded
and the helicopters take heavy fire.
Grudgingly they call off the extraction
and return to Forward Operating Base
to unload the wounded and assess the damage.
Monitoring the situation by radio in a room adjacent to the tarmac, as the Hueys touch down
this 32-year-old Texas-born Sgt. Roy Benavidez
he storms from the hangar, and jumps into the first helicopter
deemed fit to return to the firefight.
Knowing nearly all of the team members are dead or wounded,
he directs the pilot to a clearing and leaps to the ground.
Now nearly 100 yards from where he needs to be,
he runs the gauntlet between the Vietnamese forces and the downed team.
Halfway there he’s shot in the leg and takes another glancing round to the head.
Shrugging off the pain with equal parts adrenaline,
indignation and downright determination,
he reaches them just in time to direct their meager fire
toward the advancing NVA.
With a little luck it’ll give him just enough time to get everyone out.
If not, they’ll wind up as one more statistic
Through the automatic rifle fire
Benavidez hears the additional rescue choppers circling,
but the pilots struggle to see the team in the tall grass.
Popping a smoke canister will guide them in,
but Benavidez knows it’ll reveal their location to nearby artillery and mortar teams too.
Fresh out of options, he pops two canisters,
but the landing zone is still too hot for the Hueys.
The closest they can get is 50 yards away, maybe more.
Bleeding badly and in excruciating pain,
Benavidez single handedly drags the wounded men to the waiting choppers
one by one,
but the hail of bullets is intensifying
and the Vietnamese have edged to within hand grenade range.
Now with half the team safely in the Hueys,
the fearless pilots guide the machines closer to the remaining few
who are mere yards away,
as Benavidez runs alongside, blazing away at the enemy.
Instead of jumping in himself when nearly all the fallen soldiers are onboard,
Benavidez scrambles to recover the body of the dead team leader,
and the classified documents he was carrying,
lest they fall into NVA hands.
But when he’s within a few yards of the waiting chopper he’s hit again,
and a well-placed grenade sends hot shrapnel into his back.
Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.
Except they do, when the pilot of a nearby helicopter is hit
causing it to spin around its propeller shaft before crashing into the ground.
Now with multiple bullet wounds,
a back full of steel and losing blood by the pint,
Sgt. Benevidez makes his way to the wreckage
and hastily organizes the survivors into yet another defensive perimeter
before pulling the crew from the smoldering wreckage.
The situation worsening by the second and ammo running dangerously low,
Benavidez finds a working radio and calls in air strikes and cover fire
from the gunships that have just arrived on the scene.
For his troubles, while administering first aid to a fellow soldier
he’s wounded again, this time in the thigh,
but he drags his comrade to a waiting helicopter,
and he’s not done yet.
On his second trip Benavidez is clubbed and bayoneted from behind by an NVA soldier,
who he dispatches with his knife
before covering the last few yards to the helicopter with the wounded serviceman in-tow.
Now heaving the last man into the Huey,
he sees two Vietnamese soldiers running toward him from such an angle
that the door-gunner can’t shoot them down,
which Benavidez does before collapsing and being pulled aboard by the astonished crew.
The unbelievable tale of Sgt. Benevidez' gallantry and heroism
in the face of overwhelming odds while badly wounded
resulted in the lives of eight men being saved.
After the 6-hour battle a physician examining the unconscious Benavidez
counted nearly 40 bullet, bayonet and shrapnel wounds,
after which he was about to pronounce him dead.
Luckily the no-nonsense Texan alerted the doctor that he was still alive,
as the story goes, by spitting in the doctor's face.
Benavidez received the Distinguished Service Cross and four Purple Hearts for his actions,
and he served until 1976.
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