The overdue recognition for 83-year-old retired Col. Paris Davis comes after his recommendation for the medal was lost, resubmitted — and then lost again.
Retired Army Col. Paris Davis, an Ohio native, who is set to receive the Medal of Honor for his service in the Vietnam War speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at a hotel in Arlington, Va., on March 2, 2023.WASHINGTON — Nearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the nation’s highest award for bravery during the Vietnam War, retired Col.
“Right now I’m overwhelmed,” he told The Associated Press in an interview the day before he attends a White House ceremony where President“When you’re fighting, you’re not thinking about this moment,” Davis said. “You’re just trying to get through that moment.”Davis, then a captain and commander with the 5th Special Forces Group, engaged in nearly continuous combat during a pre-dawn raid on a North Vietnamese army camp in the village of Bong Son in Binh Dinh province.
Davis, a native of Cleveland, retired in 1985 at the rank of colonel and now lives in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington. Biden called him several weeks ago to deliver the news.He compares receiving the medal to getting a long-anticipated ice cream cone and says the wait in no way lessens the honor.
“I believe that someone purposely lost the paperwork,” Ron Deis, a junior member of Davis’ team in Bong Son, told the AP in a separate interview.
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Black Vietnam vet at last getting his due: Medal of HonorNearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the nation’s highest award for bravery during the Vietnam War, retired Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat, will receive the prestigious Medal of Honor on Friday. It wasn't until 2016 — half a century after Davis risked his life to save some of his men by fighting off the North Vietnamese — that a volunteer group of advocates painstakingly recreated and resubmitted the paperwork. “Right now I'm overwhelmed,” he told The Associated Press in an interview the day before he attends a White House ceremony where President Joe Biden will hang the blue ribbon holding the Medal of Honor around Davis' neck.
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