SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
As a young man, Paris Davis set out to join the Army's elite special forces. The service as a Green Beret would earn him the Army's highest distinction, the Medal of Honor, only it took nearly 60 years for him to receive the award. NPR veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence recently sat down with Davis.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Paris Davis joined the Army in 1956. He had something to prove. The last all-Black units in the Army from World War II had just been disbanded, and there was a lie being told about them, that the Black units ran under fire.
PARIS DAVIS: The conversation was with this white officer that Black soldiers, if they're in a fight, they're going to run. You're going to be by yourself.
LAWRENCE: So Davis sought out the toughest assignment possible, Army special forces.
DAVIS: Because in special forces, almost everybody is white. And you really have to have a conviction that you belong there.
LAWRENCE: Davis proved he did belong there. He went to Vietnam and eventually made captain. On his second tour, his commander asked him if he thought he could lead an all-white team. It was 1965. In Alabama, the police were attacking Black Americans marching for their voting rights. Davis knew he had to say yes. But there was one concern, Master Sergeant Billy Waugh, from a small town in Texas.
DAVIS: He came from a part of America that didn't like Blacks and the only time you could see one was when he was carrying groceries or doing whatever some white person told him to do.
LAWRENCE: And Davis wasn't sure Waugh could handle following a Black man's orders. But Waugh had more combat experience in Korea and Vietnam.
DAVIS: He was just very, very good. And there was no taking that away from him. But he still had this thing that I wasn't as good as he because I was Black and he was white. But the thing is, he was always a good fighter.
LAWRENCE: Waugh proved that near the village of Bong Son, in a battle that nearly killed both men.
DAVIS: I had grenades. I had a AK-47. I had a pistol. I had a knife in my boot I used later on in a knife fight.
LAWRENCE: Shrapnel from a grenade knocked out one of his teeth. Later, he felt a pain in his trigger finger.
DAVIS: And I can remember getting this finger shot off and putting this finger in my pocket, saying that I thought that they could reattach it.
LAWRENCE: He started firing with his pinky. His rifle jammed, and he used it as a club. Davis carried three of his wounded men to the medevac chopper over what would be a two-day battle, refusing to get airlifted himself. But the hardest one to get was Billy Waugh, who was pinned down in a shallow rut in the ground, within earshot but out of reach. Waugh took bullets in the knee, the ankle, the foot and eventually one across the forehead.
DAVIS: And I tell you, when he got shot the fifth time in that leg, he was calling God everything but a friend. I mean, he was just [expletive], don't you see what's happening to me? I'm being shot and nothing [expletive] happened. Why the h*** don't you get me out of this? I mean, he was just talking out loud to God and, I guess, to me too.
LAWRENCE: Davis took another bullet, this time to the leg, as he carried Waugh back to safety. And despite the circumstances, there was something he had to tell Waugh as he put him on the chopper.
DAVIS: And I said to him - I said, you know what? You'll never forget this. And he said, why? He said, every time you take a step, it's a limp.
LAWRENCE: In 1965, Paris Davis took a moment, bloody, in the middle of a war, to tell a white Southerner that his shattered leg would forever be a reminder that a Black man saved his life. Billy Waugh lived with that limp to the age of 93 and stepped into legend as a Green Beret and CIA agent. Waugh's last mission was to Afghanistan in 2001. He told his side of the story in a memoir in 2005 and called Paris Davis an excellent team leader. He didn't mention anything about racial tension, but he did remember the battle.
After the battle, Davis was nominated for the Medal of Honor, but that nomination disappeared. He was nominated again, and that paperwork disappeared. His supporters think racism was the cause. Davis retired as a colonel in 1985, still without that medal. It wouldn't come until 2023.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOE BIDEN: You're looking at courage in the flesh.
LAWRENCE: At the White House, Davis, aged 83, stood stone-faced in his dress uniform. President Biden placed the Medal of Honor around his collar as an announcer read the award citation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Has awarded, in the name of Congress, the Medal of Honor to Captain Paris D. Davis.
LAWRENCE: That citation relied on testimony from other Green Berets at Bong Son, including a rediscovered affidavit from 1981 signed by Billy Waugh, who supported the Medal of Honor for Davis. He later wrote, I only have to close my eyes to vividly recall the gallantry.
(APPLAUSE)
LAWRENCE: Many others had pushed for Davis to finally get the medal, including acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller at the end of the first Trump administration. Then the Biden administration undertook a review of Black and Native American troops' awards to find others that might have been blocked by racism. Today, the Pentagon is rolling back anything to do with promoting diversity and has fired prominent Black general officers. Davis is aware but undaunted.
DAVIS: The people in America are great. America is still a great place to be.
LAWRENCE: After waiting six decades for his Medal of Honor, he takes a long view.
DAVIS: And we just have to remember the old saying in the Bible. This too shall pass.
LAWRENCE: Quil Lawrence, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANCE THE RAPPER SONG, "CHILD OF GOD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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