More Top Picks Best Peanut Balls For Therapy
Sammy Lee Davis comes from a multi-generational military family, served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War and once saved the lives of three colleagues in a way that won him the Congressional Medal of Honor. He’s about as pro-military as a person can get.
Yet even Davis finds it appalling the degree to which social discourse has become tainted by partisan politics, with people trying to put their perspective over all others.
“You don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican,” Davis told a gathering of military veterans gathered Monday at the Indiana University Northwest campus in support of Webb House, a Gary facility providing a place to live for veterans who’d otherwise be homeless. “The only thing we should all try to be is American.”
When it comes to those professional athletes who want to speak out and express their opposition during ballgames, Davis said he understands their sentiment and might actually go along with them – but he would rather they did so at times other than the National Anthem.
He said he has told professional football players this, and for the most part thinks they understand his sentiment.
Davis was the keynote speaker at Webb House’s 9th annual Celebration of Life dinner meant to promote Webb House and the services it provides.
Davis, who enlisted in the Army in 1965, recalled the early hours of Nov. 18, 1967, when he was in an artillery unit near Cai Lai that came under fire from North Vietnamese soldiers.
During the attack, a misfired shell exploded, causing Davis to suffer about 30 wounds to his body. Then, he noticed a fellow soldier waving to indicate he needed help, he said.
Davis was able to use the pillow of his air mattress to float himself across a river, where he found the soldier and two others. Davis was able to get all three of them back across the river, where Army medics were able to provide the help that enabled all to survive.
A year and a day later, Davis was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Davis often talks of his experience, including to groups of children whom he says will ask the most blunt questions of all.
But in recalling the experience that got him the Congressional Medal of Honor, he said it was just a gut reaction that caused him to want to save his soldier colleagues. “I didn’t hesitate because I’m positive any one of those guys would have done the same for me if they had seen me in trouble.”
Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
