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This man died 37 times Historical Legends Part 2 · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: If you google the craziest war story of all time,
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Speaker 1: the story I'm going to tell.
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Speaker 3: All right, let's get into today's story.
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Speaker 1: Born in South Texas in nineteen thirty five, Roy Benavidez
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Speaker 1: was orphaned as a young child and sent to live
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Speaker 1: with his uncle. As a young teen, he had to
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Speaker 1: drop out of school to work in the beat and
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Speaker 1: cotton fields.
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Speaker 2: Just to help support his family.
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Speaker 1: When he turned eighteen, he decided he wanted to get
1:00
Speaker 1: away from his hometown and do something bigger with his life,
1:02
Speaker 1: and so he enlisted in the army, and shortly after
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Speaker 1: that he went to Airborne school and then was assigned
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Speaker 1: to the very famous eighty second Airborne Division. In October
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Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty four, Roy was a part of the
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Speaker 1: first one hundred and twenty five thousand Americans sent to Vietnam.
1:16
Speaker 1: While on a classified operation that required Roy to dress
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Speaker 1: up as an enemy combatant, he stepped on a landmine
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Speaker 1: in the middle of the jungle and nobody else was
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Speaker 1: with him, so he's totally stranded. But fortunately a squad
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Speaker 1: of US Marines came upon him, but from what he
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Speaker 1: was wearing, they assumed he was an enemy soldier, and
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Speaker 1: so they almost.
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Speaker 2: Walked past him, but someone thought to just flip.
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Speaker 1: Him over and see who he was, and they discovered
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Speaker 1: he was American and he had American dog tags on.
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Speaker 1: And so he was evacuated from Vietnam and sent to
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Speaker 1: an American hospital, and there a doctor would tell him
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Speaker 1: that he had a serious final injury and that it
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Speaker 1: was unlikely he would ever walk again. And Roy's first
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Speaker 1: reaction was, please don't discharge me from the army, because
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Speaker 1: for Roy, the army was his life.
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Speaker 2: It was all he had. He was incredibly proud of it, and.
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Speaker 1: He desperately wanted to go back to Vietnam, and so
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Speaker 1: he pleaded with the doctors and the nurses, please let
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Speaker 1: me have some time to try to regain my strength
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Speaker 1: in my legs so that I don't get medically discharged.
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Speaker 1: And so they said, look, you're gonna get medically retired
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Speaker 1: if you aren't walking within the year. And so every night,
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Speaker 1: when his doctors and nurses would leave, he would fall
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Speaker 1: out of his bed and then drag himself across the
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Speaker 1: ground to the wall, and then he'd pull himself up
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Speaker 1: and try to put weight on his legs and attempt
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Speaker 1: to build strength back up and retrain himself how to walk.
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Speaker 1: And after six months of doing this every night, he
2:28
Speaker 1: did literally reteach himself how to walk.
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Speaker 2: He built up strength in his legs.
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Speaker 1: And his doctors and nurses they're watching this transformation during
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Speaker 1: the day, but they're not seeing him at night, and
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Speaker 1: they're telling him this is a miracle. We've never seen
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Speaker 1: this before, We've never seen someone recover so quickly. And
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Speaker 1: Royd has stayed quiet because he wanted to make sure
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Speaker 1: he was allowed to keep doing that every night. And
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Speaker 1: so finally, after those six months, his doctors and nurses.
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Speaker 2: Agreed that yep, he's good. He can stay in the army.
2:52
Speaker 1: But the Army said they wanted him to take a
2:54
Speaker 1: desk job because he had already been so.
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Speaker 2: Badly wounded in combat, and Roy didn't want that.
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Speaker 1: He pleaded with them to let him go back to
3:01
Speaker 1: the eighty second, but they said, no, we're not going
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Speaker 1: to risk you getting hurt again. And so he was
3:05
Speaker 1: sent to North Carolina for his desk job, and as
3:07
Speaker 1: soon as he got there, he began training like a maniac,
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Speaker 1: every minute of every day.
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Speaker 2: Trying to get in the best shape of his life.
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Speaker 1: Because his plan in his head was once he got there,
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Speaker 1: he would try out four special Forces. He would try
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Speaker 1: to become an Army Green Beret, which is the premier
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Speaker 1: combat unit in the Army. It's one of the hardest
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Speaker 1: ones to get into, and their training program is in
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Speaker 1: North Carolina. And so after a few months he was
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Speaker 1: in amazing shape and he asked his superiors, can I
3:31
Speaker 1: go try out to be a Green Beret?
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Speaker 2: And they're like, I can't believe.
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Speaker 1: You're even walking, but you know what, You've come this far.
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Speaker 2: You can go try out, And just a couple of
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Speaker 2: months later, Roy Benavidez was a Green Beret.
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Speaker 1: A year later, in nineteen sixty eight, so four years
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Speaker 1: after Roy was nearly killed by that landmine, he was
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Speaker 1: sent back to Vietnam for his second combat tour, and
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Speaker 1: as soon as he got there, the fighting was very intense.
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Speaker 1: On May second of that year, Roy had a day
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Speaker 1: off and he was spending his day off at a
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Speaker 1: church service inside of their wooden shack they had built
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Speaker 1: on their base, And while he was in there listening
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Speaker 1: to the chaplain, he heard a radio call come out
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Speaker 1: from the communications table that was just outside of the
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Speaker 1: shack he was in, and it sounded like someone was
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Speaker 1: in trouble, and so he ran outside to listen to
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Speaker 1: the radio and what he heard was this very desperate
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Speaker 1: call from someone yelling into the radio, get us out
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Speaker 1: of here. And in the background of this radio call
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Speaker 1: is just a constant barrage of gunfire. The call for
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Speaker 1: help came from a twelve man Army Special Forces team
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Speaker 1: that had been ambushed by an entire North Vietnamese Army
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Speaker 1: infantry battalion. To put that in perspective, that is twelve
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Speaker 1: Special Forces members of which many of them Roy knew personally,
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Speaker 1: in the middle of the jungle where on all four
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Speaker 1: sides there are over one thousand enemy combatants. As Roy
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Speaker 1: is hearing this distressing transmission come across the radio, he
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Speaker 1: hears overhead the sound of incoming helicopters and he looks
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Speaker 1: and he sees there's three birds that are coming towards
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Speaker 1: their base, and so he runs over to the landing
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Speaker 1: zone to greet the helicopters as they come in, and
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Speaker 1: he can see as they're landing they are all completely
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Speaker 1: covered in bullet holes. As soon as they touched down,
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Speaker 1: Roy runs up to one of the door gunners, which
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Speaker 1: is this nineteen year old kid, and he looks kind
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Speaker 1: of dazed, and Roy asked him, you know what's going on?
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Speaker 1: Where'd you guys just come from? Were you out there
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Speaker 1: at that ambush site? Do you know what's going on
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Speaker 1: with that twelve man team? And the door gunner just
5:13
Speaker 1: collapses into Roy's arms and dies.
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Speaker 2: He had been shot up.
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Speaker 1: These three helicopters had attempted previously to fly into the
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Speaker 1: jungle and save that twelve man team, but they had
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Speaker 1: been shot off and had been unsuccessful. Roy helped get
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Speaker 1: the dead door gunner out of the helo, and then
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Speaker 1: he turned to the pilot of this helo where the
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Speaker 1: door gunner was and he asked him, you know, are
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Speaker 1: you going to go back out there and try to
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Speaker 1: save those guys. And the pilot was obviously so distraught
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Speaker 1: about the death of his door gunner and also the
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Speaker 1: fact that there are twelve men out there that they
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Speaker 1: could not rescue, that he's chomping at the bit he
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Speaker 1: wants to go back out there. And Roy immediately volunteers
5:46
Speaker 1: hops in the helo and they had out to go
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Speaker 1: rescue this twelve man team. So not only are there
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Speaker 1: only two of them, but Roy was so eager to
5:53
Speaker 1: volunteer himself he forgot his gun, so all he had
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Speaker 1: on him was his knife and some medical supplies.
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Speaker 2: But nonetheless, the just keeps.
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Speaker 1: Flying towards the ambush site, which was in Cambodia.
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Speaker 2: It was this really dense.
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Speaker 1: Stretch of jungle, and as they got closer and closer,
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Speaker 1: gunfire started coming out of the jungle towards the helicopter,
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Speaker 1: and so the pilot had to do this kind of
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Speaker 1: constant zigzagging just to avoid getting shot down.
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Speaker 2: And so as they're zigzagging, they noticed there's some.
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Speaker 1: Smoke coming out of the jungle, and it was very
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Speaker 1: clear that this twelve man team is trying to signal
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Speaker 1: to the helo here we are come get us, because
6:24
Speaker 1: they can hear the helicopters coming in. And so the
6:26
Speaker 1: pilot tried to fly down and get as close as
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Speaker 1: he could, but anytime he got even marginally close to
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Speaker 1: this team, the rate of fire would pick up so
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Speaker 1: dramatically that the helo was just.
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Speaker 2: About to get shot down.
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Speaker 1: And so the pilot began to turn away and he
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Speaker 1: told Roy, we can't get any closer.
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Speaker 2: We're going to have to get more people in here.
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Speaker 1: And Roy just tells him, no, get as low as
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Speaker 1: you can and I will jump out into the jungle.
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Speaker 2: And the pilot turns to him and he's like, you
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Speaker 2: can't do that. You're gonna get killed.
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Speaker 1: And Roy somehow convinces this pilot that he alone without
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Speaker 1: a gun, is totally competent. Just put me down in
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Speaker 1: that jungle and everything's going to be just fine. And
6:58
Speaker 1: so the pilot said, okay. He lowered right over the
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Speaker 1: canopy of this jungle, about one hundred yards away from
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Speaker 1: where this twelve man team is trapped, and without any hesitation,
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Speaker 1: Roy just leaps off the helicopter into the jungle. Now,
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Speaker 1: you got to understand that where he was jumping was
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Speaker 1: where the enemy was. He was literally jumping, no parachute,
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Speaker 1: no gun, no anything, just crashing through the canopy onto
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Speaker 1: the jungle floor where he'll definitely be surrounded by enemy combatants.
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Speaker 1: And so he plummets through the canopy, smashes onto the ground.
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Speaker 1: He pops up and just starts running through the jungle
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Speaker 1: with enemies on either side of him, towards the twelve
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Speaker 1: man down team. And the enemy was so surprised to
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Speaker 1: just see this American running through the middle of the
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Speaker 1: jungle by himself with no weapon that they hesitated for
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Speaker 1: a minute and they didn't open fire on him. But
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Speaker 1: when they did open fire, Roy got shot in the face,
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Speaker 1: in the back of the head, in the leg.
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Speaker 2: They threw a grenade that detonated at.
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Speaker 1: His back and set shrapnel into him, but none of
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Speaker 1: it stopped Roy. He just kept on running until he
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Speaker 1: made it to this down to twelve man team.
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Speaker 2: And when he got to them, they were in terrible shape.
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Speaker 2: They were doing their best.
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Speaker 1: To stay behind some trees, but rounds were coming in
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Speaker 1: from all directions and four of them were already dead,
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Speaker 1: and the others that were still alive were critically wounded.
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Speaker 1: In fact, one of the most able bodied of these
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Speaker 1: surviving twelve had been shot in the head and was
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Speaker 1: missing an eye and could barely see out of the
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Speaker 1: other one, and so he's fighting to stay conscious and
8:18
Speaker 1: he's generally trying to shoot in one direction. But I mean,
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Speaker 1: that's their best s guy at this point, to give
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Speaker 1: you a state of how they were doing. But Roy
8:25
Speaker 1: ran up to the sky, he pulled him down, He
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Speaker 1: gave him a shot of morphine in the arm, and
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Speaker 1: he repositioned him because he couldn't really see, and told
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Speaker 1: him where to shoot his gun, and then under a
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Speaker 1: constant hail of bullets, Roy low crawled to each of
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Speaker 1: the other living team members and gave them morphine shots
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Speaker 1: and then began dragging each and every one of them
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Speaker 1: away from the ambush site to this other area where
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Speaker 1: there was better cover and there was a nearby clearing
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Speaker 1: that he believed a helicopter could land in if the
8:50
Speaker 1: pilot was really daring.
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Speaker 2: On one of Roy's.
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Speaker 1: Last trips back to the ambush site to get the
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Speaker 1: last few surviving members, he saw two other men that
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Speaker 1: were part of this team that had been totally cut
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Speaker 1: off from the main group and when Roy had jumped
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Speaker 1: into the jungle and ran in all his adrenaline had
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Speaker 1: kicked up and he just hadn't done a head count,
9:07
Speaker 1: and so he didn't realize there were two other people
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Speaker 1: over there, and so without any hesitation, he grabbed a
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Speaker 1: gun off of one of the dead enemy soldiers and
9:14
Speaker 1: just began running towards this down two man team. And
9:17
Speaker 1: as he's running, he's shooting wildly in every direction, trying
9:20
Speaker 1: his best to suppress enemy fire, but it's really doing nothing.
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Speaker 1: He's just dodging bullets as he's running. And right as
9:26
Speaker 1: he got close to the two man team, a bullet
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Speaker 1: went flying through his thigh, just cleaned through his thigh,
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Speaker 1: and it didn't slow him down. He got to the
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Speaker 1: two man team totally unfazed, and he says, okay, get
9:35
Speaker 1: ready to move. He stands back up and he starts
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Speaker 1: shooting again in both directions and tells them to crawl
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Speaker 1: back to the main unit. And so he stands up
9:42
Speaker 1: and continues to shoot and both directions until these two
9:46
Speaker 1: men get back over to the main group. Once they
9:48
Speaker 1: were safely with the group, Roy again ran the gauntlet
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Speaker 1: with this huge gaping hole in his thigh, all the
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Speaker 1: way back to the main group. And so, now that
9:55
Speaker 1: Roy had a full head count of all of the
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Speaker 1: living members of the down to twelve man team, and
10:00
Speaker 1: he had moved them all to the slightly safer area
10:02
Speaker 1: relatively with better cover and concealment, he threw a smoke
10:05
Speaker 1: grenade into the nearby clearing he had found, in hopes
10:08
Speaker 1: that the helo pilot overhead would see the smoke and
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Speaker 1: be willing to come down and land. The pilot that
10:13
Speaker 1: had dropped off. Roy had not actually left the area.
10:16
Speaker 1: He had moved away from all the fighting, but he
10:18
Speaker 1: was loitering in case something like this happened.
10:20
Speaker 2: And so he saw the smoke, and without.
10:22
Speaker 1: Any hesitation, he flew right over, taking rounds the whole
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Speaker 1: time pinging off the side of his helicopter, and he
10:28
Speaker 1: touched down right in this tiny little clearing. And so
10:30
Speaker 1: as these semi able bodied surviving members of this unit
10:33
Speaker 1: began making their way over to the helicopter, Roy began
10:36
Speaker 1: running around a little ways off from the helicopter, picking
10:39
Speaker 1: up rifles off of the dead enemy and shooting back
10:42
Speaker 1: at the enemy, dropping that gun, running over, picking up another.
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Speaker 2: One, engaging the enemy over and over again.
10:47
Speaker 1: Doing everything he can to try to protect the extract
10:49
Speaker 1: of his men behind him. And once Roy turned around
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Speaker 1: and saw most of the men had made it onto
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Speaker 1: the helicopter, Roy believed it was his chance now to
10:56
Speaker 1: run out and try to collect some of their dead teammates,
10:59
Speaker 1: and so Roy just takes off into the jungle, right
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Speaker 1: into enemy fire.
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Speaker 2: He's got two guns in his hands and he's running.
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Speaker 2: He's trying to engage.
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Speaker 1: The enemy as he's going, and then he comes across
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Speaker 1: the first of his dead teammates, and it happens to
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Speaker 1: be one of his very best friends, a man named
11:12
Speaker 1: Leroy Wright, and so he grabs Leroy and begins trying
11:15
Speaker 1: to haul him back towards the chopper. And as he's moving,
11:18
Speaker 1: Roy gets shot again, this time through his stomach, so
11:21
Speaker 1: he tries to keep himself on his feet, and as
11:23
Speaker 1: he's doing that, a grenade dead nates behind him, sending
11:25
Speaker 1: more shrapnel into his body, knocking him unconscious. When he
11:28
Speaker 1: came to, he started looking around and he could see
11:31
Speaker 1: in the tree line dozens of enemy soldiers running towards him,
11:34
Speaker 1: and so he knew if he tried to bring Leroy
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Speaker 1: back to the chopper that was a suicide mission, and
11:39
Speaker 1: so he had to leave his friend behind. He jumped up,
11:41
Speaker 1: and with all of these enemy combatants just constantly engaging him,
11:45
Speaker 1: he ran all the way back, zigging and zagging back
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Speaker 1: to the main group, and when he got there, expecting
11:50
Speaker 1: to see the helicopter, he found the helicopter had actually
11:53
Speaker 1: crashed onto the ground and was on fire.
11:55
Speaker 2: It had been shot down while he was unconscious, and
11:58
Speaker 2: so he.
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Speaker 1: Ran over to the flaming shell of this helicopter and
12:01
Speaker 1: he saw the pilot had been killed, but some of
12:03
Speaker 1: the men that had climbed on, the men that he
12:05
Speaker 1: had just rescued, they had survived the crash and subsequent explosion,
12:09
Speaker 1: and so Roy just leaps into the burning vehicle and
12:11
Speaker 1: starts throwing these survivors out, but then he let back out.
12:14
Speaker 2: He picked up a gun, continued.
12:16
Speaker 1: To engage the enemy, and then began picking up these
12:18
Speaker 1: wounded men and dragging them even farther away to another
12:22
Speaker 1: area that was safely away from this crash site, because
12:25
Speaker 1: he knew if he didn't get all these people away
12:27
Speaker 1: from the crash site, pretty soon mortars are going to
12:29
Speaker 1: come raining down on this area because their enemy is
12:32
Speaker 1: going to want to kill any of the people that
12:34
Speaker 1: are going to try to rescue the people that were
12:36
Speaker 1: on the helicopter.
12:37
Speaker 2: And so Roy finally gets all.
12:38
Speaker 1: Of the survivors over to this new area and he's
12:40
Speaker 1: looking around and he can see there are still hundreds
12:43
Speaker 1: of enemy fighters that are not that far away from them,
12:46
Speaker 1: just constantly engaging them. And Roy's doing his best to
12:48
Speaker 1: grab guns off the ground and shoot the enemy, but
12:51
Speaker 1: there's just too many of them. And he's looking around
12:53
Speaker 1: at his team and everybody's on the brink of death,
12:55
Speaker 1: and so is Roy. He's just functioning on adrenaline at
12:58
Speaker 1: this point, and he thinks to himself, the only way
13:00
Speaker 1: we can get out of this is if we call
13:02
Speaker 1: in what's called a danger close airstrike. So what you
13:04
Speaker 1: need to understand about how air strikes work in a
13:07
Speaker 1: combat zone is there's someone called a controller that is
13:10
Speaker 1: on the ground directing the aircraft overhead. They're the ones
13:14
Speaker 1: effectively telling the plane where to shoot, and so a
13:17
Speaker 1: danger close airstrike is when the controller tells the aircraft overhead,
13:21
Speaker 1: I want you to drop a bomb right here, giving
13:24
Speaker 1: them the grid coordinates. But where they're telling them to
13:26
Speaker 1: drop is basically in the same position where the controller is,
13:30
Speaker 1: and you'd only do it if you're being overrun. It's
13:33
Speaker 1: a way to ensure your enemy gets taken out, even
13:35
Speaker 1: if that means taking yourself out. Now, the goal of
13:37
Speaker 1: the controller is not to drop the bomb on themselves
13:40
Speaker 1: or their team. The goal of the controller is to
13:42
Speaker 1: get that air strike as close.
13:44
Speaker 2: As you can to your position without killing you.
13:46
Speaker 1: And so Roy, who's physically wrecked, he's getting shot at,
13:49
Speaker 1: he's got bullet holes all over him. It's totally chaotic.
13:52
Speaker 1: He pulls out his map, He calmly finds his grid coordinates.
13:56
Speaker 1: He calls it into the aircraft overhead, and he calls
13:58
Speaker 1: in a beautiful place decision, napalm strike.
14:01
Speaker 2: It does not affect his team at all.
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Speaker 1: He calls in multiple gun runs, none of them affect
14:06
Speaker 1: his team, despite them all being considered danger close air strikes.
14:09
Speaker 1: And so Roy just continuously called an attack run after
14:12
Speaker 1: attack run, taking out enemy combatants all around them, completely
14:16
Speaker 1: suppressing the fire.
14:17
Speaker 2: But at some point the aircraft overhead ran out of
14:20
Speaker 2: fuel and had to leave.
14:21
Speaker 1: And at that point, these surviving enemy combatants, which still
14:24
Speaker 1: numbered in the hundreds, they popped their heads up and
14:27
Speaker 1: they unleashed a hillacious volley of fire in which Roy
14:31
Speaker 1: again got shot cleaned through the leg. And so now
14:33
Speaker 1: Roy's looking around and he's realizing they're pretty much out
14:36
Speaker 1: of options. They don't have aircraft overhead, Roy's basically out
14:39
Speaker 1: of ammunition, and there's no dead guy's guns around for
14:41
Speaker 1: him to grab. All of his team members are basically
14:44
Speaker 1: on the brink of death, and so Roy's thinking to himself,
14:47
Speaker 1: any minute now, we're going to get overrun, and so
14:49
Speaker 1: he crawls to each of his surviving teammates and he
14:51
Speaker 1: gives them one last shot of morphine to at least
14:54
Speaker 1: make their death painless. And then at the eleventh hour,
14:57
Speaker 1: another helo comes blazing into the jungle and opens fire on.
15:00
Speaker 2: The enemy, pushing them back.
15:02
Speaker 1: Roy is immediately invigorated and motivated because now he sees
15:06
Speaker 1: an opportunity to potentially survive this, and so once again
15:09
Speaker 1: he grabs his teammates and begins schlepping them over to
15:12
Speaker 1: the helicopter, And after he believed he got the last
15:15
Speaker 1: of them on board, he turned and saw two of
15:17
Speaker 1: his teammates had fallen down farther back in the jungle
15:20
Speaker 1: and the enemy was closing in on them, and so Roy,
15:22
Speaker 1: like always, without any hesitation, just starts running towards them,
15:26
Speaker 1: and as he's just about to reach them, an enemy
15:28
Speaker 1: soldier that had apparently run out of ammunition leapt out
15:31
Speaker 1: of the jungle and smashed Roy on the side of
15:34
Speaker 1: the head with the rifle button, fracturing his skull. And
15:37
Speaker 1: so Roy falls to the ground and the soldier jumps
15:39
Speaker 1: on top of him and smashes his face, breaking his jaw.
15:42
Speaker 1: And then the soldier turns his rifle around. There's a
15:44
Speaker 1: bayonet on the front side, and he begins impaling Roy
15:47
Speaker 1: over and over again, and Roy, like out of a movie,
15:51
Speaker 1: grabbed the rifle, pulled it out of himself, threw the
15:54
Speaker 1: soldier on the ground, jumped up, got on top of him,
15:57
Speaker 1: drew his bowie knife, and proceeded to kill this soul.
16:00
Speaker 1: And after he was done with that, he ran over
16:02
Speaker 1: to the two down men. He grabbed one of them
16:04
Speaker 1: with his left hand. He picked up a rifle with
16:06
Speaker 1: the other and as he's dragging this guy back to
16:08
Speaker 1: the chopper, he shoots and kills two more enemy combatants.
16:11
Speaker 2: So he finally gets this guy back to the chopper.
16:13
Speaker 1: He runs back, gets the last guy, throws him back
16:16
Speaker 1: in the helicopter and then finally, Roy is the very
16:19
Speaker 1: last living American to hop in the helicopter and the
16:22
Speaker 1: helicopter takes off. On the heelo ride back, Roy was
16:25
Speaker 1: in very rough shape and had to literally hold his
16:27
Speaker 1: insides inside of his stomach. And so when they finally
16:30
Speaker 1: landed back at base and Roy was hauled off of
16:32
Speaker 1: the helicopter, he wasn't moving and the doctors and nurses
16:35
Speaker 1: didn't really even know where to start with him. He
16:37
Speaker 1: had so many injuries. He had thirty seven significant holes
16:41
Speaker 1: in his body from gun chop wounds from bayonet wounds
16:45
Speaker 1: from shrapnel, and so they started trying to treat him,
16:47
Speaker 1: but there was no heart beat, no pulse, and so
16:50
Speaker 1: they declared him dead. Roy's body was moved into a
16:52
Speaker 1: body bag, and as the doctor was zipping it up again,
16:55
Speaker 1: Roy spit in his face. Because Roy had no other
16:58
Speaker 1: way to communicate his dawe was so badly broken from
17:01
Speaker 1: that rifle butt. He couldn't move his jaw and his
17:04
Speaker 1: eyes were sealed shut from all the blood on his
17:06
Speaker 1: face that had dried, and so his only way to
17:08
Speaker 1: communicate was to spit, And so, unbelievably, Roy was still alive,
17:13
Speaker 1: and so they took him out of the body bag
17:15
Speaker 1: and they shipped him to Japan for intensive surgery, and
17:18
Speaker 1: then he was transferred to Texas, where he spent a
17:20
Speaker 1: year rehabbing from his severe injuries. Roy was immediately given
17:23
Speaker 1: the Distinguished Service Cross and was put in for the
17:26
Speaker 1: Congressional Medal of Honor, which is the US military's highest
17:28
Speaker 1: award for valor. But the paperwork took a really long time,
17:32
Speaker 1: and so Roy was not actually given the Congressional Medal
17:34
Speaker 1: of Honor until nineteen eighty One. Of the twelve men
17:37
Speaker 1: that were trapped in that jungle, eight would survive, all
17:39
Speaker 1: thanks to Roy Benavitez.
17:41
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you. A lot of people call me
17:52
Speaker 4: a hero. I appreciate the title, but the real heroes
17:58
Speaker 4: are the ones that gave lands in this country.
18:05
Speaker 1: Roy passed away in nineteen ninety eight as a result
18:08
Speaker 1: of complications from diabetes.
18:10
Speaker 2: He was sixty three years old. So that's going to
18:11
Speaker 2: do it. Guys.
18:12
Speaker 1: If you found the secret in today's episode, let us
18:14
Speaker 1: know in the comments what it is and where you
18:16
Speaker 1: found it. So give us the timestamp, and if for
18:18
Speaker 1: the first to do that, we'll pin you at the
18:20
Speaker 1: top of the comment section. If you enjoy today's video
18:22
Speaker 1: and you haven't done this already, please take out all
18:25
Speaker 1: of the Life Buttons trash bags from their trash cans
18:28
Speaker 1: and then proceed to throw various perishable.
18:30
Speaker 2: Saucy foods inside.
18:32
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18:34
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18:36
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18:39
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18:41
Speaker 1: or on Twitter. My username for both platforms is the same.
18:43
Speaker 1: It's John Balin four one six. I also have a
18:46
Speaker 1: ton of content over on TikTok, where my username is
18:48
Speaker 1: mister Ballin. I also have a second YouTube channel called
18:51
Speaker 1: mister Ballin Shorts, where.
18:52
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18:54
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18:56
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18:58
Speaker 2: It's linked in the description below.
19:00
Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube,
19:03
Speaker 1: or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your
19:05
Speaker 1: support and until next time that's going to do it
19:07
Speaker 1: see it