Nearly 60 years after he was recommended for the nation’s highest military award, retired Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat, received the Medal of Honor on Friday for his bravery in the Vietnam War.
After a crowded White House ceremony, a grateful Davis emphasized the positive of the honor rather than negative of the delay, saying, “It is in the best interests of America that we do things like this.”
It wasn’t until 2016 — half a century after Davis risked his life to save some of his men under fire — that advocates painstakingly recreated and resubmitted the paperwork. Biden said Davis should have received the honor years ago, describing segregation in the U.S. when he returned home and questioning the delay in awarding him the medal.Davis doesn’t dwell on the delayed honor and says he doesn’t know why decades had to pass before it finally arrived.
He engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the North Vietnamese, called for precision artillery fire and thwarted the capture of three American soldiers — all while suffering wounds from gunshots and grenade fragments. He used his pinkie finger to fire his rifle after his hand was shattered by an enemy grenade, according to reports.
Davis, from 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.“It heightens the thing, if you’ve got to wait that long,” he said. “It’s like someone promised you an ice cream cone. You know what it looks like, what it smells like. You just haven’t licked it.”
Deis, now 79, helped compile the recommendation that was submitted in 2016. He said he knew Davis had been recommended for the Medal of Honor shortly after the battle in 1965, and he spent years wondering why it hadn’t been awarded. Nine years ago he learned that a second nomination had been submitted “and that also was somehow, quote, lost.”
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