Retired Facilities Manager, HVAC control technician. US Navy 1965-1969. GMG2 Swiftboats Vietnam 68-68. PCF 44,48,82 and 88. I don’t do DM’s. 🚫finance people.
🚨BREAKING: House GOP Chairwoman Lisa McClain goes nuclear on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, stating, "Let’s be clear: Tim Walz has stolen money FROM American kids and given it to Somali fraudsters. House Republicans will hold him accountable."
November 18, 1967. 2 a.m. Firebase Cudgel, west of Cai Lay in the Mekong Delta.
Mortars start falling. Then a Viet Cong battalion storms the base, getting within 25 meters of the American lines. Only a river separates them from the guns.
PFC Sammy Davis, 21, grabs a machine gun to cover his howitzer crew. A recoilless rifle round scores a direct hit on the gun. The blast throws the crew clear and blows Davis into a foxhole.
He climbs out. The howitzer is on fire.
Ignoring warnings to take cover, he rams a shell into the burning gun, aims it and fires. The recoil slams him to the ground. He gets up and does it again. A mortar round explodes 20 meters away and wounds him. He loads and fires again, and gets knocked flat again. Then he fires three more.
Across the river, three wounded Americans are cut off.
Davis can't swim. He grabs an air mattress and paddles across the river anyway. On the far side, he stands up and fires into the jungle to hold the Viet Cong back while the worst-wounded man is helped across. Then he pulls the other two back over himself.
He refuses medical treatment and joins another gun crew, firing until the enemy breaks off and runs.
When Lyndon Johnson hung the Medal of Honor around his neck, Davis pulled out a harmonica and played "Oh Shenandoah" for the men he served with.
Twenty-six years later, you saw that ceremony in a movie theater. The footage was used in Forrest Gump, with Tom Hanks' head digitally placed over Sammy Davis.