26- WELL...WHAT IS AN AMERICAN? II.....

Roy Perez Benavidez, that's who!
He was an icon, more than a hero, but it took so many years for our country to realize that and to recognize this son of a sharecropper from Texas. Benavidez was FINALLY awarded the coveted Congressional of Honor by the late President Ronald Reagan on February 24, 1981, in the Pentagon's courtyard.
And here is a portion of his story of bravery under fire in Vietnam.
Early on May 2, 1968, as a 12-man Special Forces team, Roy was in Cambodia to observe North Vietnamese troop movements. The team was discovered. Three 'copters were sent to rescue the team but couldn't land because of heavy enemy fire. A second attempt was made, and Benavidez jumped aboard one 'coper with only a Bowie knife and directed it to his team. They, however, were severely wounded. He ran through heavy small arms fire to his wounded companions, only to also be wounded in the right leg, face and head.
He organized the team and signaled the 'copters, dragging or even carrying at least half to the 'copters. Then he grabbed up the classified documents from a dead team leader and headed back to a 'copter, where he was wounded by an exploding grenade in the back and shot in the stomach. However, the waiting 'copter's pilot was killed and the aircraft crashed.
Roy managed to collect the crash surviors and formed a defensive perimeter around them.
And called for air support and ordered another extraction attempt. He was, at this time, losing so much blood around his face that his vision was blocked. But he continued on, carrying a wounded friend when Roy was clubbed in the head by an enemy soldier with a rifle butt and then tried to bayonet the American soldier. When Roy grabbed the bayonet, he was able to surprise the other soldier and kill him, but Benavidez had part of the bayonet embedded in his in his left arm.
He was loaded into a 'copter, put into a body bag for dead. However, as he was being declared dead, he spit into the triage doctor's face!
Roy spent nearly a year in hospitals recovering from all of those injuries.
The process took from 1968 until that morning at the Pentagon in 1981 for our war hero from Texas to receive the Medal! Along the way he eventually earned the rank of Master Sergeant. Oh, can you believe that, in 1983, he had to travel to the Social Security Administration in D.C. to protest the cutoff of disability payments to him? Honest!
Over the years after the Vietnam "Conflict", Benavidez often spoke to many schools and on military bases, to young persons in runaway shelters, on the vital importance of EDUCATION.
Our icon passed away in November of 1998 and is buried at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. An elementary school there is named for him, as well as a complex at Fort Bragg. A supply ship bears his proud name.
Hasbro, in 2003, brought out the first G.I. Joe action figure to portray someone of Hispanic heritage...ROY PEREZ BENAVIDEZ!
He was and is an American...I rest my case.