President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor Monday to two soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War, including one who killed at least 135 enemy troops in a fierce four-day battle.
In a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama said Vietnam veterans “didn’t always receive the thanks and respect they deserved.”
“But as we have been reminded again today, our Vietnam vets were patriots, and are patriots,” the president said. “You served with valor, you made us proud, and your service is with us for eternity.”
Mr. Obama bestowed the nation’s highest military decoration on retired Command Sgt. Major Bennie G. Adkins, 80, of Opelika, Alabama, and posthumously to Specialist Four Donald Sloat of Oklahoma, who was killed in January 1970 when he smothered an enemy grenade to protect his comrades.
Mr. Adkins, as a Green Beret on his second tour in Vietnam in 1966, was wounded 18 times when his isolated jungle garrison near the Laotian border was overrun by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in the A Shau valley.
Over 38 hours of fighting, he carried wounded comrades to helicopters to be evacuated, ran into enemy fire repeatedly to retrieve ammunition and supplies, and fired mortar rounds continuously. Later, during a two-day-long escape, Mr. Adkins helped other wounded soldiers to safety through the jungle as the enemy closed in.
At one point during the night-time escape, Adkins and his fellow soldiers could hear a tiger growling nearby.
“It turns out that tiger might have been the best thing to happen to Benny during those days,” Mr. Obama said. “He says ’The North Vietnamese were more scared of that tiger than they were of us.’”
The medal citation stated that Mr. Adkins was estimated to have killed between 135 and 175 enemy soldiers during the battle.
He and his wife, Mary, have been married for 59 years, with six grandchildren. Mr. Adkins served three tours in Vietnam and was on active duty for more than 20 years before founding his own accounting firm in Alabama, and teaching college courses.
As the audience at the White House gave Mr. Adkins a standing ovation, he saluted.
Mr. Sloat was on patrol with his unit in 1970 when a fellow soldier tripped a booby-trap wire, releasing a grenade into their midst.
“He could have run, he could have ducked for cover,” the president said. “But Don did something truly extraordinary. … Don held onto that grenade and pulled it close to his body.”
All the other soldiers survived the explosion.
The president presented the framed medal to Mr. Sloat’s brother, Dr. William Sloat of Enid, Oklahoma.
The Medal of Honor usually must be awarded within a few years of the action being cited. But the president said these long-overdue awards were given because of new evidence and the persistence of researchers and supporters.
“Sometimes even the most extraordinary stories can get lost in the fog of war or the passage of time,” Mr. Obama said. “When new evidence comes to light, certain actions can be reconsidered for this honor, and it is entirely right and proper that we have done so.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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