Sgt.Maj. Bennie Adkins was a Green Beret who completed 3 combat tours in Vietnam and in a span of a few days, he singlehandedly managed to kill 175 enemy soldiers, suffered 18 wounds from enemy fire, fought 38 hours of battle and evaded NVA troops for 48 hours. 48 years later, Adkins was finally honored for his extremely brave and heroic acts with the Medal of Honor.
On March 9, 1966, Adkins was working alongside South Vietnamese troops at Camp A Shau when their were attacked by a large group of enemy soldiers.
Adkins rushed through intense enemy fire and manned a mortar position defending the camp. Despite being wounded, he ran through exploding mortar rounds and dragged several comrades to safety.
Adkins took the wounded soldiers to an airstrip outside the camp for extraction then drew fire away from the evacuation aircraft so it could escape. Then he went outside the safety of the camp again to retrieve supplies from an airdrop that had fallen into a minefield; it was only the first day.
The next day, the NVA launched the main attack on the camp. Adkins was the only defender firing a mortar weapon. When all mortar rounds were expended, Adkins began placing effective rifle fire upon enemy as they infiltrated the camp perimeter and assaulted his position. Despite receiving additional wounds from enemy rounds exploding on his position, Adkins fought off relentless waves of attacking NVA.
Adkins then fell back to a smaller bunker within the camp, killing more enemy troops with small arms fire and destroying equipment and classified documents so they didn’t fall into enemy hands.
As if that wasn’t enough, Adkins was carrying a wounded comrade which slowed the group down, causing them to miss the evacuation helicopters.They were forced to retreat into the jungle where they would evade their pursuers for another 48 hours; along side the NVA, tigers were also stalking the men.
On March 12, rescue helicopters would finally pick up Adkins and the other survivors. “The bottom line is that it was just not my day to go, I’m just a keeper of the medal for those other 16 who were in the battle, especially the five who didn’t make it.” #hardcore