Legend

by Eric Blehm

  “Stop!” the medic said to the soldier about to pull the zipper shut. And the body bag was replaced with a stretcher.

  —

  EN ROUTE to Loc Ninh, Waggie on Greyhound Three reported that he wasn’t certain he’d gotten all the survivors. When Ewing on Greyhound Two heard this, he knew instantly what had to be done.

  “Guys,” he said to his crew over the intercom, “we’re going to do a sweep, make sure we have everybody. Take a good look around; I’ll get in real close.”

  As Ewing set up for final approach to the PZ, the waves of NVA he’d seen earlier seemed to have dispersed. U.S. forces would often destroy downed aircraft with a massive air strike once survivors had been extracted, and the enemy had most likely moved back into the tree line—or down into tunnels and bunkers if this was indeed a major command complex—in anticipation.

  Crew Chief Paul Tagliaferri got on the intercom. “I’m gonna get out and take a quick look,” he told Ewing. “If there’s anybody left alive and I can’t move them to the aircraft, I’m gonna stay with them till help comes.”

  “Tag,” Ewing replied, “there’s nobody else coming.”

  Tagliaferri did not respond.

  They began to take fire as Greyhound Two came in fast and touched down. Tagliaferri jumped out with two M16s, first-aid kits, and extra ammo and ran directly to Greyhound One and crawled inside while Ewing hovered closer, drawing fire, and his gunner strafed the tree line to the west. Looking toward the downed slick, Ewing could see his friend Larry McKibben slumped over to the side.

  In Greyhound One, Tagliaferri checked to confirm that Fournier and McKibben were dead and dashed around the wreckage and surrounding grass, calling out for survivors. After nearly a minute, he sprinted back to Greyhound Two and jumped on board.

  With one last look at McKibben, Ewing ascended out of the PZ and headed east. Staving off tears, he asked his copilot, First Lieutenant Bob Portman, to take the controls.

  Unbeknownst to Ewing, the 162nd Assault Helicopter Company, the Vultures, was on the way from Ho Ngoc Tao to bring home the dead. McKibben had many friends in the 162nd since the Vultures had been his first assignment in Vietnam, and five of their helicopters would retrieve his body—along with those of Fournier, Wright, and the remaining CIDG—from the PZ under heavy fire as truckloads of NVA reinforcements approached from the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Though the aircraft took multiple hits, there were no casualties.

  At Loc Ninh, helicopters were rushing the survivors, many fighting for their lives, to various field hospitals. In and out of consciousness, Roy was in the back of one, on a stretcher beside Lloyd Mousseau, who had fought hard the entire battle, receiving his most severe wounds from enemy fire only as he climbed on board Greyhound Three.

  Mousseau, who had sent his daughter, Kathy, a card for her third birthday a few days before the mission, died holding Roy’s hand shortly before landing at the 93rd Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh. He was twenty-six years old.

  —

  THE FOLLOWING morning, May 3, 1968, Ewing and a contingent of 240th pilots and crewmen crammed into the back of a slick for the half-hour flight to Long Binh.

  Dan Christensen, McKibben’s crew chief, was in a long row of patients in the post-op ward. His face was bruised and swollen, his jaw wired shut, and his legs bandaged from the bullet and shrapnel he’d taken before they’d crashed.

  When Ewing asked Christensen if he needed anything, he nodded. “Do you know what happened to my .38?” he managed to scribble on a piece of paper.

  The disappearance of his sidearm had been haunting Christensen since he’d regained consciousness in the PZ, watching the world blow up around him. The impact of his helicopter slamming into the ground had cracked his helmet and broken his jaw, but as a crew chief, he’d been taught to protect the aircraft and pilots at all costs, and to never surrender his personal weapon. He wanted to be sure he hadn’t let down McKibben or Fernan. No matter how deep he searched his memory, however, he could not figure out what had happened to his gun.

  “Can you find it?” Christensen wrote to Ewing.

  Ewing asked a nurse the procedure for recovering a patient’s weapon and was directed to a locker but found no revolvers. A clerk told him it might have been tangled up in the clothing that was cut off and discarded in a dumpster behind the field hospital. Following the clerk’s directions, Ewing stepped out of the hospital into the stagnant, hot, humid air and made his way to two metal dumpsters. He swung open the metal lid of one and was hit by a stench that made him retch.

  “The dumpster was three-quarters full,” says Ewing. “Bloody clothes, burnt boots, cracked flight helmets, old bandages, shit, puke, and rot baking in the sun.” Repulsed but determined, he climbed inside and began poking through the gore. Only a few minutes into the task, he was nauseous to the verge of passing out.

  Standing tall, trying to get some air, he saw the hospital door open. Another clerk lugged a thirty- or forty-gallon trash can to the other dumpster, swung open the lid, and strained to tip the can’s contents in. That dumpster was also approaching full.

  “How often do you empty these?” Ewing asked.

  “Every other day, Sir. They’ll get this stuff tomorrow.”

  So this was from one day, he thought.

  In that moment, Ewing was “done.” Not just from looking for the .38, but also from everything about the war. He was “empty.”

  He got out of the dumpster, closed the lid, and walked away down a dusty red-dirt road. A thunderstorm opened up, and Warrant Officer Jerry Ewing climbed up on the hood of a parked jeep, buried his face in his hands, and began to wail.

  —

  WHEN O’CONNOR woke up after surgery in intensive care, a nurse pointed out two of the other survivors to him: Tuan and Roy. All three had outgoing drainage tubes and incoming IVs and bandages virtually from head to toe. Tuan’s arm had been amputated.

  Roy lay in a bed across the hall, his jaw wired shut like Christensen’s, and too far away to talk anyway, so the two men waved to each other by wiggling their toes. They remained in intensive care for several days, and one morning Roy awoke to find O’Connor’s bed empty. He didn’t want to ask, but he assumed that O’Connor had died in the night. That was how it was.

  On May 20, 1968, Roy left the hospital at Long Binh; made the journey inside the hull of a medical transport C-130 to the hospital at Tachikawa Air Base, Japan; then to another medical transport to the United States and San Antonio, Texas, where he was wheeled on a gurney to Fort Sam Houston, Brooke Army Medical Center. Unlike 1965, he was awake and aware throughout the trip. Lala held his face in her hands and kissed him, refusing to let on how shocked she was by the extent of his wounds. She had received a Western Union telegram from the secretary of the Army on May 5 that stated, “Your husband, staff sergeant Roy P. Benavidez, was slightly wounded in Vietnam on 2 May 1968, as a result of hostile action. He received multiple fragment wounds to the face, the neck, and the abdomen. Since he is not, repeat, not seriously wounded, no further reports will be furnished.”

  The same day Lala received the telegram, seventeen-year-old Debbie McKibben was studying for her senior high school year final exams. Her mother, Maxine, was making dinner in the kitchen. Debbie heard a knock on the door, opened it, and when she saw the officer standing there, “It was as though an electrical shock had gone through my body,” she says.

  Maxine asked the officer if he would stay with them after he delivered the terrible news, until Cecil got home from work in a few hours. She offered the man coffee, then sat on the living room couch and held Debbie. A couple of hours later, Cecil opened the door with a smile. “Then his face, his whole body, just sagged under the weight of the news. I only remember him saying ‘No,’ the second he saw us and the officer. He knew,” says Debbie.

  Debbie retreated to her bedroom and buried her face in her pillow, remembering Larry sittin
g there beside her almost two years before—but it seemed like just yesterday—telling her, “I’m going to go fight communism there so you don’t have to face it here. I’m not afraid—I want to go.”

  —

  ROY HAD sustained more than thirty wounds and for the next year would continue to undergo extensive surgeries to repair his left arm and hand; remove half of his left lung; and extract shrapnel, bullet, and bone fragments from in and around his kidney, liver, intestines, colon, lungs, and heart.

  As soon as he was able, he wrote a letter to Roger Waggie to thank him and the other pilots and crew who had extracted the men on May 2; he also requested the address for Larry McKibben’s family. A couple weeks went by with no response, and he wrote Waggie again, concerned. More weeks passed with no response.

  At the end of July 1968, a second lieutenant was walking the ward, handing out Purple Hearts to healing soldiers “like prizes at a carnival show,” says Roy. “It was nothing like I would have expected for these men who had taken a bullet or worse for their country.” When he reached Roy’s bed, he read the clipboard and handed Roy four Purple Hearts and a small box containing a Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest award a soldier can receive, second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  “Congratulations, Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “With all due respect, Sir,” replied Roy, “it takes more than a second lieutenant to award this medal.”

  On September 10, 1968, almost four months into his stay at Brooke Army Medical Center, Roy stood at attention beside his bed and saluted General Westmoreland, who had been promoted to chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and had scheduled time to visit the wounded while on official business at Fort Sam Houston. While members of Roy’s family and a small contingent of officers and reporters looked on, Westmoreland said, “Many years ago, I met [Staff Sergeant Benavidez] at Fort Gordon, Georgia. I was impressed with his appearance. I was impressed with the self-discipline that he displayed. I was impressed with him as a soldier. I said, ‘Sergeant Benavidez, you should go Airborne.’ He accepted my advice. He went Airborne, and he’s still a paratrooper, I believe. Aren’t you, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Roy said, astonished by the general’s recall. “And I will be one, Sir, for a long time.”

  Westmoreland went on to read the citation that began “For extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations involving conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam…” and ended with “Because of Sergeant Benavidez’s indomitable spirit, the lives of eight men were saved.”

  Roy shook Westmoreland’s hand and stood for a photo with Lala and his brother Roger, his forced smile betraying his sadness. He was proud of the medal, proud that he’d honored the Benavidez name, that he’d performed his duty for his country—but in his mind he was back in Cambodia with O’Connor, Wright, Mousseau, Christensen, Fernan, Fournier, McKibben, and the CIDG who had fought alongside them and lost their lives. They were the real heroes. And what of Waggie? Roy wondered if he would ever hear from him or if he, too, had been killed in a subsequent operation.

  At the end of September, Roy finally received a letter from Vietnam:

  Dear Sir,

  I know that you are disappointed in me but hope you understand. After your second letter, I left [to fly a mission at] the Cambodian border. We had 2 ships go down and lost the entire crew of one. Bill Fernan, who was flying with Larry McKibben when he was killed, was the ship that didn’t come back. We did recover one crew. I left Bear Cat 10, July and have only been here once since. I went on R & R to Hawaii on 13 August. While I was there, we had 2 pilots killed and a crew chief. My roommate was killed June 24. We lost 6 pilots that day. It has really been bad. I am the only one left from the platoon that Larry knew. Hope you understand my situation and forgive me for not answering promptly. We are having a lot of action here. Seems like they are everywhere.

  Take care.

  Waggie

  —

  ON NUMEROUS occasions during his stay in the Fort Sam Houston hospital, Roy was advised to retire from the Army for medical reasons. He refused. A year and one week after he’d jumped on the helicopter at Loc Ninh, Roy checked out of the hospital on May 9, 1969. He had in hand orders for temporary duty with the 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and a copy of the Winter 1968 edition of Tour

  365, a magazine given to departing soldiers at the end of their tours in Vietnam.

  An Army-prepared history of Vietnam and the U.S. involvement through 1968, Tour 365 began with a letter from the new commanding general in Vietnam, Creighton W. Abrams: “Your tour of duty with the United States Army is ended. May your trip home and reunion with family and friends be the pleasant happy occasion you have anticipated. You go home with my best wishes. As Veterans of this war, you can now look back with perspective on your experiences and know the trying and difficult tasks inherent in fighting to protect the freedom of peace-loving people against Communist invaders. You know of the local Vietcong terrorists who kill and maim their own neighbors…. People at home will want to hear your story of the war. Tell it.”

  The magazine ended with a closing letter from Frank T. Mildren, the deputy commanding lieutenant general in Vietnam, who wrote: “You may leave this land of Vietnam—the jungles, mountains, and coastal plains—with that inner satisfaction of knowing you have served the cause of free men everywhere. The Republic of Vietnam and, indeed, our own nation, are greatly in your debt for your efforts. Now you are going home to rejoin your family and friends. They are proud of you and are anxiously awaiting your return.”

  In direct contradiction to those words, Roy’s orders advised him not to wear his uniform at airports, train stations, bus depots, and essentially anywhere in public, because there had been a number of conflicts between returning veterans and those who opposed the war. They were taking their frustrations out on the soldiers, calling them “baby killers,” spitting on their boots, and perpetrating other hostile acts.

  But Roy continued to wear his uniform proudly. He wore it when he drove to Jacinto City outside Houston and knocked on the door of the house where Larry McKibben had grown up.

  Inside, he embraced Cecil and Maxine and held the framed photo of their son they took off the wall to show him, as well as the Distinguished Service Cross they had been presented. He told them how sorry he was for their loss, showed them his own DSC, and said he would not have been able to do what he did—and eight men would not have survived—if it weren’t for their son’s bravery. He said to them what he couldn’t say to Larry McKibben, what very few Vietnam veterans would hear upon their return: “Thank you.”

  —

  AFTER ONE parachute jump—and one painful landing—at Fort Devens, Roy decided it was his last. His body couldn’t take it. Six months into his temporary duty at Fort Devens, he moved to Fort Riley, Kansas, at the request of Major General Robert R. Linville, Commanding General, 1st Infantry Division—whom he had chauffeured in the past—to become the general’s full-time driver. There, on November 20, 1969, Lala gave birth to their second daughter, Yvette Benavidez.

  Roy reenlisted for another six years in 1971, the same year that, on April 24, two hundred thousand people marched on Washington, DC, to protest the war. In early 1972, Roy moved his family back to Fort Sam Houston, where General Patrick Cassidy was in need of an experienced chauffeur. Roy and Lala’s son, Noel Benavidez, was born on August 26 of that same year.

  General Cassidy retired in 1974 and gave Roy the opportunity to choose his next assignment. Roy had dreamed of bringing his career full circle by advising and training Special Forces and infantrymen. A new readiness group was being formed at Fort Sam Houston to do just that, and while it would be a physically demanding job, working in the field among young, fit soldiers, he was up for the challenge. General Cassidy made the recommendation, and Roy secured a position that kept him and his family at Fo
rt Sam Houston, not far from home in El Campo.

  Roy lived with a great deal of pain as he worked in the field, but his dedication and performance remained exemplary, as evidenced by the letters of recommendation for promotion that filled his personnel file, from high-ranking officers such as Major General Linville, who wrote: “As a true soldier of honest dedication, there is no one I would recommend more highly.” That sentiment was echoed by Brigadier General John A. Seitz, Colonel Wilfrid K. G. Smith, and Colonel R. D. Tice, all of whom applauded Roy’s character, dedication, and commitment to his fellow soldiers.

  Perhaps most telling were the comments of Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Cavazos, who wrote of Roy’s duties as the assistant operations sergeant in the largest brigade in the 1st Infantry Division: “The constant requirements would have overwhelmed a lesser man. Despite the discomfort that SFC Benavidez suffered due to wounds received in two tours, he always gave his utmost in any task. SFC Benavidez has been a sterling example. He conducted himself at all times with a demeanor that elicited the admiration and respect of everyone. He is highly decorated and the courage that he displays at all times under the most trying of circumstances marks him as a true soldier’s soldier. His initiative, professional knowledge, and readiness to assist his fellow soldiers more than qualifies him for [promotion].”

  Roy had risen to the rank of master sergeant and was the senior enlisted adviser to the team readiness group. He was thirty-nine years old and, because of the numerous surgical and battle scars that covered his body, was known by his fellow NCOs as “the walking road map.” He would become noticeably embarrassed when his service in Vietnam was brought up or the Distinguished Service Cross he’d wear on formal occasions was remarked upon. If he was referred to as a hero, he was quick to say, “I appreciate that, but the real heroes didn’t come home.”