Following are excerpts of President Biden’s remarks Friday at the bestowal on Colonel Paris Davis of the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in the Battle of Vietnam.
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THE PRESIDENT: This is an incredible man. A hundred and fifty-eight years ago today, in this White House, President Lincoln was putting the final touches on his second Inaugural Address. And he wrote, “Let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds and care for him who shall have borne the battle.” Today, 58 years after he bore the battle, we honor a true hero of our nation: Colonel Paris Davis.
In the early hours of June 18, 1965, then-Captain Davis and his team, with three other Green Berets, were wrapping up a job well done. They’d just finished a 10-mile march through the night to support a company of South Vietnamese soldiers on their first combat mission: a raid against the Viet Cong, thick in the jungle of Bồng Sơn. The raid was a success.
But as the sun began to rise, the men heard that haunting sound ring out: a bugle. A bugle. A sure sign of a counterattack. Within minutes, the jungle lit up with enemy fire. Hundreds of Viet Cong began to swarm Captain Davis and his team, pinning them down in a rice paddy with no cover.
Captain Davis rallied his team to fight back, getting so close to the enemy he was battling them hand to hand. Hours — this is the part that stuns me — hours into that fight, Captain Davis heard, suddenly heard a sound worse than the bugle: his teammate crying out for help. His team sergeant had been shot badly in his foot and his leg, trapping him in the middle of the paddy.
And it got worse. On the far side of the field, his weapons specialist was stuck in a cesspit after being temporarily knocked out by shrapnel. You know, and even further beyond him was his medic, who had been shot in the head. Captain Davis realized he was the last American standing. Without hesitation, he yelled, “I’m coming for you!”
He called in friendly fire, and gave a little bit of cover to run out and rescue his team. On his first attempt to get to team sergeant, Captain Davis was shot in the arm and had to turn back. Captain Davis waited for another window and sprinted back out again. But his team sergeant was stuck, and Captain Davis couldn’t fully break him free before he had to return — had to return to cover.
He didn’t give up, though. That’s not the Green Beret way. For his third time, as enemy fire rained down on him, he ran out. Captain Davis freed his team sergeant, threw him over his shoulder, and started carrying up the hill to safety. Captain Davis got about halfway up the hill before a bullet pierced his leg.
Then, in front of him, another Green Beret sergeant, who had just arrived to the battle to reinforce the team, was shot in the chest and now needed to be rescued as well. Captain Davis limped up the hill with his team sergeant on his shoulder. He had been fighting for around 10 hours, but Captain Davis didn’t hesitate. He went back down the hill to retrieve the reinforcement who had been just shot in the chest, all 240 pounds of him.
Next, Captain Davis ran to his weapons specialist, who was stuck in that cesspit. Viet Cong fighters continued to spray gunfire across the field as Captain Davis threw his teammate a rope, pulled him out, and began to haul him up the hill as well. By this time, the rescue helicopter had landed. Captain Davis’s commander gave him a direct order: “Get on board.”
Davis’s response was just as direct. “Sir,” he said, “I’m just not going to leave. I still have an American out there.” Unsure if he was still alive, Captain Davis began to plan how he would get his medic. Just the day before, the medic had found out he was the — good news: He was a new father. His wife had given birth to their first child. Captain Davis was going to give him a chance to see his baby boy.
He pinpointed the medic’s position and began crawling toward him with gunfire and grenades still exploding around him. When he got there, the medic, still alive, asked him, “Am I going to die?” Captain Davis responded, “Not before me.” Still fending off the Viet Cong assailants, Captain Davis hauled his medic up the hill. And nearly 20 hours — nearly 20 hours later — after that bugle first rang, Captain Davis had saved each one of his fellow Americans.
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