Today, the morning workout was a welcome regular Arms Day workout, lots of dumbbell work! Got the biceps, triceps, and forearms all in there! Overhead extensions, curls, and extensions? Check! Then came Valor Challenge. Valor Challenge this week started with 60 burpees, with a loving note that all 60 had to be finished before moving to the next weight and/or set. They were followed by 60 sit-ups, and a 400 meter run (0.7 mile bike for me). My time was 20:52. It may seem slow to some, but 60 burpees after my 34 push-ups for warm up and all the arm work on Arms Day, made me take some time for sure! Either way, it’s for a good cause. Here is the Valor Challenge information from Mission Six Zero:
Deliberate Discomfort
VALOR CHALLENGE
Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez, U.S. Army SF
As you go through the challenge, please think about Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez and his example.
MSG Benavidez was born in Texas. When he was two years old, his father died of tuberculosis and his mother remarried. Five years later, his mother died from tuberculosis as well. Benavidez enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard in 1952 at the age of 17 during the Korean War. In June 1955, he switched from the Army National Guard to Army active duty. In 1959, he completed Airborne training, and was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He qualified as a Green Beret and was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group.
In 1965 he was sent to South Vietnam as an advisor to an Army of the Republic of Vietnam infantry regiment. He stepped on a land mine during a patrol and was evacuated to the United States. Doctors at Fort Sam Houston concluded he would never walk again and began preparing his medical discharge papers. Getting out of bed at night (against doctors’ orders), Benavidez would crawl using his elbows and chin to a wall near his bedside and (with the encouragement of his fellow patients, many of whom were permanently paralyzed and/or missing limbs) he would prop himself against the wall and attempt to lift himself unaided, starting by wiggling his toes, then his feet, and then eventually (after several months of excruciating practice that, by his own admission, often left him in tears) pushing himself up the wall with his ankles and legs. After over a year of hospitalization, Benavidez walked out of the hospital in July 1966, with his wife at his side, determined to return to combat in Vietnam. Despite continuing pain from his wounds, he returned to South Vietnam in January 1968.
On May 2, 1968, a 12-man Special Forces patrol, which included nine Montagnard tribesmen, was surrounded by a NVA infantry battalion of about 1,000 men and began taking fire. Benavidez heard the radio appeal for help and boarded a helicopter to respond. His Medal of Honor Citation tells the story:
Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam.
On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire.
Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters, of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, returned to off-load wounded crew members and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team.
Prior to reaching the team’s position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team’s position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy’s fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader.
When he reached the leader’s body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy’s fire and so permit another extraction attempt.
He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed from behind by an enemy soldier. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, he sustained additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. (He was stabbed in his stomach with an NVA’s knife, pulled that knife out, and killed him with it.) He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded.
Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. After the battle, he was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. As he was placed in a body bag among the other dead in body bags, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him but believed Benavidez was dead. The doctor was about to zip up the body bag when Benavidez managed to spit in his face, alerting the doctor that he was alive. Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six-hour fight with the enemy. Sergeant Benavidez’ gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.
Benavidez was evacuated once again to Fort Sam Houston’s Brooke Army Medical Center, where he eventually recovered. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism and four Purple Hearts. In 1969, he was assigned to Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1972, he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas where he remained until retirement. He received the Medal of Honor on February 24, 1981. He passed away on November 29, 1998, at the age of 63.
Good luck today, guys. May your workout honor his memory.
-Jason B.A. Van Camp
The rest of my tasks tended to just pile up today! We started the day by trying to get some work in, as we are behind on a few things, but that just wasn’t working at all for either one of us. Between the littles being persistent in not wanting to play in their rooms, to a million other interruptions through the few hours we were trying, we just weren’t getting anything done. We eventually moved on and completed a few other tasks in the front room, and moved on from there. I only recently got some of my reading in, but I think I’m still a little behind and that leaves me a ton of reading to finish up tomorrow. I’m up for it, and hoping I can get it done, but we’ll have to see how well I sleep and how church goes!
I did get a nice cardio walk in with my eldest, we were able to chat about video games and life in general, which was nice and relaxing. We haven’t been able to get a ton of time in with each other, so that was a blessing today. We were able to get to 2.0 miles in 47 minutes. A slower pace, but we were getting quality father/son time, you know?
Everything else has been squeezed in over the last couple of hours, but I think I’m done and ready! With all the change up and uncertainty we were experiencing with getting focused time, it was definitely a Day Of Not So Much Rest!
