0:01 - 0:24
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: Vietnam, 1967. Fire Base Cudjel at Kai Lei, a young artilleryman named Sammy Lee Davis, performs extraordinary acts of bravery. With a broken back, he crosses a river under heavy fire to rescue three American soldiers, men he considered, and still considers, his brothers. His self-sacrificing actions earn him the Medal of Honor.
0:24 - 1:01
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: This is Allen Foulds for TNL On Air, and I spoke with Illustrious Sammy Lee Davis, 33rd degree. During our talk, he tells the dramatic story of those long-ago events that led to the Congressional Medal. We talk about his personal background to discern exactly who is Sammy Lee Davis. And we talk about the new veterans recognition pin named in his honor. On a lighter note, we touch upon the fact that his award ceremony with President Johnson made its way into a famous motion picture, but with a twist. We open with Brother Davis talking of his family's extensive military history.
1:10 - 1:29
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Well, my daddy's daddy, my grandfather, was in the Spanish-American War. Mama's daddy, John Hilling, was in World War One. My dad was in World War Two. My oldest brother was in Korea. Next brother was in the Berlin conflict and I was in Vietnam.
1:30 - 1:36
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: It's quite a long history. Fire Base Cudjel. Tell me what happened on November 18th, 1967?
1:37 - 1:55
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Well, our artillery man's job is to provide close and continued support to the infantry. So they would usually pick at least two, one or five Howitzers, up the Chinook helicopters and take us and set us down in the jungle where we could best support the infantry, because he was always moving.
1:55 - 2:35
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: So we had to move sometimes two or three times a day so we could be in the best position so we could support as many infantry as possible. And they picked us up early, early in the morning. We landed probably by 8:00 in the morning. We were set up and immediately we started firing because the infantry was really getting hit hard and we fired as fast as we could, literally, as fast as we could load the Howitzer all day. And then that afternoon, the enemy finally broke contact and we were able to stop and try to clean our gun up a little bit because we had just been throwing the expended shells, you know, all around.
2:35 - 3:06
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: And that's when a helicopter landed and the colonel got out and gathered us that we had four guns on that operation and gathered us and said, we wanted to tell you that the opportunity of you getting hit tonight is 100%, that they're… because we flew over the enemy coming in to land here. What he didn't tell us was that it was a reinforced North Vietnamese battalion of NBA . . . extremely serious.
3:06 - 3:20
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: So we tried to prepare as much as possible and at 2 a.m. the next morning is when they hit us and they started rushing us. 150 to 250 at a time would come; mass assault wave running at our position.
3:21
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: What happened later in the morning?
3:23 - 3:50
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Well, at 2:00 in the morning, that's when they hit us and they, the enemy, and we kept doing our job. Well, the enemy fired a rocket at me in my house and one or five Howitzer and hit the little shield that's on each side of the house. The explosion was eight inches from my head. It knocked me unconscious and I was laying on the ground the rest of the morning.
3:50 - 4:12
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: But for the first couple hours, I was like in a fog and my head finally started clearing up a little bit. And I started realizing that those weren't just pretty lights in the air, that those were tracers that told me the enemy was there. And it just made me even more serious. And I kept trying to do my job. I did for my brothers, what I knew they'd do for me.
4:13 - 4:51
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: When I looked across the river and seen one of our guys, Wendell Holloway stand up, and he waved his boonie hat at me and he said, “Don't shoot! I'm a GI!” Well, I had been firing across the river for a couple of hours and I was just terrified, petrified my heart that I'd been shooting at my brothers. Of course, there was hundreds of enemies all around them. So I knew I had to go get him. So I had no small arms ammunition left at all, in fact that I didn't have any ammunition of any kind left. I got on, I found a piece of air mattress and went across the canal.
4:51 - 5:46
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Finally, I made it to the foxhole. Where I’d last seen Wendell stand. And when I got to the foxhole, there were three men in it. Not just one. Well, it had taken me about 40, 45 minutes to make that trip. My body wasn't working really great, but I wasn't going to quit. So I loaded up Jim Dyster, one of the men. Wendell said “Dyster is dead." He was shot right through the head. Bullet went in this ear, came out just below this ear and then the enemy had shot him right in the chest.
But it didn't hit his spine. It went at an angle and they said, “Dyster's dead.” But I wasn't going to leave Dyster because we could see what they had been doing to some of our soldiers that were there, that were dead. And we weren't going to let them do that any more than we could help it. So I pulled up Dyster and put him across my back, picked up Billy Ray, picked up Wendell Holloway from Alvin, Texas, and started making our way back.
5:46 - 5:47
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: So you do all three in one trip?
5:47 - 6:16
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Yes, sir. Had I asked the man above to give me the strength to do that. In fact, that's still my prayer. I pray that, sir, just let me do my job. I would be. Wendell still had three clips of ammunition for his M-16 when you could hear the enemy behind me starting to make another mass assault, that I would lay the guys down and I would lay on top of them, and I'd have the M-16 right here. That's what it was, very unique.
6:16 - 6:52
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: I could see what I watched their eyes and they were young soldiers, just like I was. They were scared, just like I was. And they were doing what their sergeant just told them to do. And they were running to the riverbank to cross over to get to where they thought we were. But I was on their side of the back and I would watch their eyes. And when they seen me, I mean, I'm sure all of them seen laying right there in plain open, but they didn't see it. But when they recognized me for what it was and I could see they were getting ready to do their job well, I'd quickly do my job with my M-16 and Wendell’s M-16.
6:52 - 7:29
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Then when I finally ran out of ammunition for that, well, I just kept moving the guys, moving the guys and finally got to the riverbank. I helped put Jim Dyster on the air mattress. He was dead but I wasn't going to leave him. And I brought him across. Frank Gage jumped in and got Jim Dyster, and I went back across. Billy Ray and Glendale could both hang on to that little piece of air mattress, and I ferried them back across. Then Bill Murray and Frank Gage jumped in and helped me get those guys up out of the water. And the enemy was still doing their job, so we were still fighting.
7:39 - 7:45
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: After that you were promoted, and then, later, you were awarded the Medal of Honor. Describe the scene at the White House, that must have been amazing.
7:46 - 8:02
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: As I was standing there in front of the president, my knees were shaking so bad I thought I was going to fall ill. In fact, later my mama said, 'Son, your legs were shaking so bad I thought you was going to fall down.' I said, 'Me too, Mama.' But they didn't. I kept doing my job.
8:02 - 8:05
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: A couple of minutes ago, you made reference to a movie that you appeared in. I think it was an Oscar winning movie? At least most of you appeared in the movie. Tell me a little bit about that.
8:11 - 8:26
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: I am the real Forrest Gump. When the president is putting the Medal of Honor around Forrest Gump in the movie, that is my actual footage from when President Johnson awarded me the Medal of Honor and they simply put Tom's face over my face in the movie.
8:28 - 8:36
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: How have the tenets of the fraternity shaped your life and your way of thinking - or was it the other way around? Did you seek out an organization that aligned with the way you thought?
8:37 - 8:48
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: Because of my family, and everything that they had tried to teach me about the Masonic Lodge, I knew that's where I wanted to be. I wanted it in my heart. And the older I got, the more important it was.
8:53 - 9:02
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: In 2018 at the Indiana Council of Deliberation, Sovereign Grand Commander Glattly awarded the first Peace and Freedom Award to Brother Sammy Lee Davis.
9:02 - 9:11
Sovereign Grand Commander Glattly: And we thought it only fitting that the first person to receive this new pin would be Sammy. May I pin that on you?
9:13 - 9:23
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: All members of the Northern Masonic jurisdiction who served in either active Guard or Reserve Armed Forces, or members of the uniformed services, are eligible for this recognition.
9:25 - 9:32
Sovereign Grand Commander Glattly: It's the Sammy Lee Davis pin.
9:32 - 9:34
Ill. Alan Foulds, 33°: The Sammy Lee Davis Peace and Freedom award. How do you feel about that?
9:34 - 9:50
Ill. Sammy Lee Davis, 33°: That touches my heart in a special way, and it reinforces what I believe that I've been trying to do right all these years and will inspire, continue to inspire me and I hope will inspire others to always stand up for what you believe is right.