President Biden will award the Medal of Honor to a Black Vietnam War veteran who’s been waiting to receive the military’s highest honor since he was first nominated for it in 1965.
The White House said Biden called retired U.S. Army Col. Paris Davis on Monday to inform him that his “remarkable heroism during the Vietnam War” will finally be celebrated, decades after the military lost paperwork documenting his nomination.
The White House did not specify when the ceremony will occur but said Davis — one of the first Black officers to join the Army’s Special Forces — will receive the medal following recommendations by Army Secretary Christine Wormuth and Defense Secretary Lloyd T. Austin III.
“The president told Col. Davis that he looks forward to hosting him at the White House soon for a medal presentation,” the White House press office said.
Davis was 26 when, on June 18, 1965, he twice disobeyed an order to abandon his team and the battlefield during a burst of enemy fire. An injured Davis, as several news organizations have reported over the years, refused to leave behind his fellow soldiers. He ultimately rescued each member of his team, according to the Army Times.
His valor earned him a nomination for the Medal of Honor — a nomination that the Army inexplicably lost.
In a statement, Davis said Biden’s call Monday “prompted a wave of memories of the men and women I served with in Vietnam — from the members of 5th Special Forces Group and other U.S. military units to the doctors and nurses who cared for our wounded.”
“As I anticipate receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor, I am so very grateful for my family and friends within the military and elsewhere who kept alive the story of A-team, A-321 at Camp Bong Son,” Davis said. “I think often of those fateful 19 hours on June 18, 1965 and what our team did to make sure we left no man behind on that battlefield.”
According to CBS News, Billy Waugh, one of the American soldiers rescued by Davis that day, personally nominated him for the Medal of Honor immediately after his actions. But decades passed, and Davis was not honored.
According to the New York Times, Davis’s commander resubmitted the nomination, but it somehow disappeared again.
“I know race was a factor” in the stalling, Davis told CBS News in 2021.
“What other assumption can you make,” Ron Deis — one of the youngest soldiers in Davis’s 1965 team who’s spent years lobbying for Davis’s medal — told the Times in 2021. “We all knew he deserved it then. … He sure as hell deserves it now.”
In his statement Monday, Davis thanked those who advocated for him and his family through the years.
Asked by CBS what it would mean to be recognized for his service, Davis said: “It would mean all the things that I haven’t been able to dream about.”