One of the 7 survivors of Cushman's Pocket on Iwo Jima, who was there along with my father, was hit in the face with Nambu machine gun rounds which tore away part of his jaw. That happened AFTER he had one arm shredded by another machine gun, and after he had a Japanese mortar round detonate between his lower legs, completely shredding one of his legs. All of that happened within the first few hours of the fight, and he survived to escape the predicament along with my dad and 5 others more than 24 hours later. He went on to have a successful career as an attorney in Pasadena, California, and eventually retired to Hawaii. I spoke with the man back in 2000, and he was able to corroborate many of the details of Cushman's Pocket that my dad had related to me.WarHawk-AVG wrote:A great example would be Roy P. Benavidez during vietnam.
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I got to meet him and shake his hand at my Highschool, I bought his book "The Last Medal of Honor" before he changed the name for the new MOH winners in the gulf war..he signed it for me too.SSG Roy P. Benavidez saved a Special Forces unit in Vietnam in spite of a broken jaw, 37 bullet wounds and bayonet puncture wounds while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group.
On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces reconnaissance team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam. The team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy fire. Benavidez volunteered to assist in another extraction attempt. He jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team.
Despite severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and the helicopter crashed. Benavidez made his way back to the wreckage and helped the wounded out of the overturned aircraft and formed a defensive perimeter. He was wounded again just before another extraction helicopter landed.
Upon reaching the aircraft, Benavidez spotted and killed two more enemy soldiers. With little strength left, he made one last trip to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. His refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds saved the lives of at least eight men. He received the Medal of Honor for these actions. SSGT Beneavidez died after a long illness in 1998.
He said he was so tore up that they though he was dead and left him in his body bag...he said he remembered the extreme hot from laying in the bag on the tarmac, then the cold of the cargoplane, then he said he spit in the eye of the guy fixing to embalm him (that's all he could do)..I wish I could find the picture of the diagram of the wounds he sustained yet kept on fighting!
The point is that this guy was not only "wounded," he was horribly mangled, and he stayed in the fight and survived it at least another 60 years.
