This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib and this is Aalib and this is A Habib, and this is Our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

Roy Benavides struggled in his school before dropping out in the seventh grade.

He worked odd jobs to help support his family, in a tire shop, on farms, even shining shoes at the local bus station.

In 1952, he enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard

and eventually became a member of the Army Special Forces known as the Green Berets.

One day in 1965, he was sent to Vietnam, where, on just a single action, he was wounded 37 times by bullets, shrapnel, a bayonet, and a rifle butt.

But his thoughts that day were on his injured brothers in arms.

His actions that day saved eight other men's lives in Vietnam.

He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery, but it wouldn't be for 13 years.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan presented Benavides the Medal of Honor.

Reagan turned to the press and said,

If the story of his heroism were a movie script, you wouldn't believe it.

Let's begin this story with President Reagan speaking at that ceremony,

and later we will be hearing the details from Roy Benavides himself.

Let's take a listen.

Men and women of the armed forces, ladies and gentlemen, several years ago, we brought home

a group of American fighting men who had obeyed their country's call and who had fought as bravely

and as well as any Americans in our history.

They came home without a victory, not because they'd been defeated, but because they'd

been denied permission to win.

...