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President Joe Biden awarded the Medal of Honor to retired Black Army Colonel Paris Davis on Friday for his heroic service during the Vietnam War, after paperwork recommending him for the honor mysteriously “disappeared” in 1965, and then again. four years later.
Beginning his White House remarks, Biden said that awarding the nation’s highest military honor is “the most important day since I’ve been president.”
Davis sat to the president’s right, facing forward as Biden detailed his heroism and his service in a military that had recently desegregated.
‘Paris helped write the history of our nation. And this year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of our first fully integrated armed forces,’ he said. ‘Paris Davis will continue to stand with the nations pioneering heroes.’
“Paris, you are everting what this medal means, I mean everything this medal means,” he said. ‘You are everything our nation is at our best.’
President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to retired Army Colonel Paris Davis for his heroism during the Vietnam War
Davis, a Vietnam veteran, was one of the first black officers to lead the Green Beret forces.
He stood outside the White House after the ceremony to speak to reporters. She was asked what it meant to receive the honor, but she started looking for notes.
‘Let me find a statement. I’m supposed to read you, because I haven’t read myself! he joked with the journalists.
Reading from a sheet of paper, he said: ‘Thank you, President Biden. This medal reflects what can be achieved with teamwork, service and dedication.’
“God bless you, God bless you all, God bless America,” he added.
Davis, while under fire from North Vietnamese forces near Saigon in June 1965, dragged his fellow serviceman to safety, even after a grenade went through his teeth and trigger finger.
He refused to leave two of his comrades behind. One of them, Billy Waugh, spoke decades later of how Davis “grabbed me and dragged me away, after he himself had been shot several times and couldn’t walk.”
“I only have to close my eyes to vividly remember the gallantry of this individual,” he wrote years later, in 1981.
Retired Army Colonel Paris Davis, a Vietnam veteran, was one of the first black officers to lead the Green Beret forces.
President Biden shakes hands with Colonel Davis
Paperwork recommending Colonel Davis for the Medal of Honor was lost – twice
Davis was nominated for the Medal of Honor shortly after the event.
But the army lost its paperwork in 1965. A commander submitted the paperwork four years later, only to lose it again, prompting charges of racism. A 1969 military review did not reveal any Medal of Honor files on Davis.
His comrades suspected that racism was at work.
What other assumption can you make? team member Ron Deis, then 77, told the New York Times in 2021.
“We all knew he had it coming then,” he said. I’m sure he deserves it now.
Waugh and his former commanding officer, Billy Cole, recommended him for the commendation.
Pressing on, his advocates contacted former Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, who ordered an expedited review of the matter.
CBS asked Davis last year if he thought race was a factor. “I don’t think so, I know race was a factor,” she said.
According to the Times account based on after-action reports, Davis had his teeth and trigger finger blown off by the grenade in June 1965 after his team came under fire. They and about 90 South Vietnamese forces continued to engage fire.
He fired with his little finger and ran into open areas to help his teammates.
Davis repeatedly ran into an open rice paddy to rescue each member of his team, according to ArmyTimes. All of his team survived. Davis refused to leave the battlefield until his men were safely withdrawn.
Born in Cleveland, Davis retired in 1985 with the rank of colonel and now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington. Biden called him several weeks ago to break the news.
Colonel Paris Davis in Vietnam
‘This medal reflects what can be achieved with teamwork, service and dedication’ – Colonel Davis
Davis was ultimately awarded a Silver Star Medal, the Army’s third-highest combat medal, as an interim honor, but members of Davis’ team have argued that the color of his skin was a factor in his recommendation’s demise. of the Medal of Honor.
“I think somebody lost the paperwork on purpose,” Ron Deis, a junior member of Davis’ Bong Son team, told the AP in a separate interview.
Deis, now 79, helped compile the recommendation that was submitted in 2016.
He said he knew that Davis had been recommended for the Medal of Honor shortly after the battle in 1965 and spent years wondering why Davis had not received the medal. Nine years ago he learned that a second nomination had been submitted “and that it also somehow, I quote, got lost.”
“But I don’t think they’re lost,” Deis said. I think they were intentionally discarded. They were thrown out because he was black, and that’s the only conclusion I can come to.’
Army officials say there is no evidence of racism in the Davis case.
“We’re here to celebrate the fact that he received the award, a long time ago,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, deputy commanding general of the US Army Special Operations Command, told the AP. “We, the Army, don’t We haven’t been able to see anything that says, ‘Hey, this is racism.'”
“We can’t know that,” Roberson said.
In early 2021, Christopher Miller, then the acting defense secretary, ordered an expedited review of Davis’s case. He argued in an opinion column later that year that awarding Davis the Medal of Honor would address an injustice.
“Some problems in our nation outweigh partisanship,” Miller wrote. The Davis case meets that standard.