After being shot multiple times during a grueling, nearly 19-hour firefight against enemy North Vietnamese soldiers, most people would have given up.
But then-Capt. Paris Davis wasn’t most people – he was willing to risk his own life to protect his fellow soldiers.
Now nearly 60 years later, Davis is due to get the recognition his fellow soldiers have long said he deserved for his “gallantry and intrepidity” during an attack in June 1965, when he is awarded the Medal of Honor by President Joe Biden in a ceremony on Friday at the White House.
At the time of the fight, Davis was serving as the commander of Alpha Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces – one of the first Black Special Forces officers in the service.
Davis commissioned as a Reserve Component officer in June 1959, completing Airborne and Ranger training in 1960 and the Special Forces qualification course two years later.
Throughout his military career – which ended when he retired as a colonel in 1985 – Davis received the Silver Star, Bronze Star with “V” device for valor, Purple Heart with one Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, and Air Medal with “V” device. He was inducted into the Army Ranger Hall of Fame in 2019.
But the Medal of Honor that Davis will receive Friday has been decades in the making.
“Just to be able to be considered for the Medal of Honor is one thing,” Davis said Thursday. “To receive it is all the things I’ve never dreamed.”
On the day in question, Davis and three other US Special Forces soldiers led a company of South Vietnamese troops in an attack against an enemy base, according to the official battle narrative. Davis had learned of the base’s location after capturing and questioning two enemy combatants on the evening of…
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