Raul Perez Benavidez

Benavidez died on 29 November 1998 at San Antonio, Texas, aged 63. He had lived thirty years with the wounds of 2 May 1968 - thirty-seven puncture, bullet and shrapnel wounds, a shattered jaw, a punctured lung, and shrapnel that was never removed.

He is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Raul Perez Benavidez, called Roy, was born 5 August 1935 at Lindenau near Cuero, in DeWitt County, Texas. His father Salvador was a Mexican farmer, his mother Teresa Perez was Yaqui, and he was a descendant of the founders of Benavides, Texas. His father died of tuberculosis when he was two; his mother died when he was seven. He and his brother were raised by their grandfather, uncle and aunt in El Campo, and he left school in the seventh grade to work the fields.

He enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard in 1952, during the Korean War, and went to active duty in June 1955. He married Hilaria Coy in 1959, completed airborne training, and joined the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. He later qualified for Special Forces and served with the 5th Special Forces Group and the Studies and Observations Group.

In 1965 he was sent to South Vietnam as an advisor to an ARVN infantry regiment. On a solo reconnaissance mission he stepped on a landmine. Doctors at Fort Sam Houston said he would never walk again and began his medical discharge.

Against orders he crawled at night to the wall beside his bed, propped himself against it, and tried to lift himself - toes first, then feet, then ankles and legs. It took months and by his own account often left him in tears. He walked out of the hospital in July 1966 with his wife beside him, and returned to Vietnam in January 1968.

On 2 May 1968, west of Loc Ninh, a twelve-man patrol was surrounded. He heard the call over the radio, ran to a returning helicopter with a knife and a medical bag, and jumped from it into the fire. Over six hours he reached the team, carried the wounded out, retrieved classified documents from the dead team leader, called in air strikes, and fought hand to hand with a soldier who bayoneted him.

He was carried off with thirty-seven wounds, unable to speak or move, and a doctor began to zip the body bag. He spat in the doctor's face - the only signal he could give that he was alive.

His award was a Distinguished Service Cross. The Medal of Honor needed an eyewitness and for years none could be found; Brian O'Connor, believed dead, was living in Fiji and read about him in a newspaper in 1980. He sent a ten-page account. President Reagan presented the Medal of Honor on 24 February 1981, telling the press: "You are going to hear something you would not believe if it were a script."

He spent the rest of his life speaking to schoolchildren, and testified before Congress when veterans' disability benefits were threatened.