The Long Road to the Medal of Honor!

Davis, Paris.  Every Weapon I Had: A Vietnam Vet's Long Road to the Medal of Honor.  New York: 

        St. Martin's Press, 2025.  ISBN: 9781250387653 

 

 

So how much do you know of the Green Berets' operations in Vietnam during 1965?  Just the movie?  Well, settle yourself down and follow Green Beret Captain Paris Davis on his most harrowing time on a knoll in Binh Dinh Province on 18 June 1965!  And stay seated as he describes his journey to finally being presented the Medal of Honor by President Biden on 3 March 2023.

 

Paris Davis sets the stage with a brief description of the action on 18 June 1965, but takes the reader to his family setting in Cleveland (OH) and the circumstances that led him to attend Southern University (LA) where he joined the ROTC which lead him to an Army career,  He joined Airborne and jumped out of planes, then Ranger School before heading to Korea in 1960.  In 1962, Davis attended Q School to become a Green Beret and had his first tour in Vietnam, after which he got married to his college sweetheart.   In 1964, he went to Okinawa to lead an A-Team in the Green Berets which led to him leading the team into Vietnam to train indigenous residents in counter-insurgency operations.  It was on a training mission to take out what was that to be a North Vietnamese company that led Capt. Davis, members of his team, and trainees into the firefight on 18 June 1965.   His commanding officer put in the paperwork of a Medal of Honor award (the paperwork disappeared).   Later that year, Capt. Davis was severely wounded in an ambush and sent home to recover.  Davis went on to serve at the Pentagon and eventually as commander of the 10th Special Forces Group that would handle counter-insurgency operations in Europe if war broke out there. Col. Davis retired in July 1985 due to medical issues and eventually started a paper in the Washington, DC area.  But he kept wondering what had happened to the Medal of Honor paperwork that had been submitted multiple times, but no records of the paperwork could be found.  Finally, with the assistance of multiple people and the assistance of several congressmen, Col. Davis was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Biden in March 3, 2023.  

 

If the reader is looking for an engaging story of courage, endurance, and grit, pick up Col. Davis' Every Weapon I Had!