You Are There… Graphic History Series.
Historical Backdrop
In May 1968, the Vietnam War was at its bloodiest. The Tet Offensive had shocked America just months before, and U.S. Special Forces were running secret missions into Cambodia under a program called Project SIGMA. These small teams were dropped deep behind enemy lines to spy on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our subject is Master Sergeant Roy P. Benavidez, a 32-year-old Mexican-American from Texas, the orphaned son of a sharecropper. He had already been wounded once in Vietnam, told he’d never walk again, and had taught himself to walk a second time.
0445 hours — Forward Operating Base Loc Ninh, III Corps, Republic of Vietnam — May 2, 1968
You wake up before dawn in a Special Forces camp on the Cambodian border, with no idea today will end with you in a body bag — still breathing. You lie on a sagging canvas cot, sweat already soaking your t-shirt. The air smells like mildew, kerosene from the lantern, and the latrine slit-trench fifty feet away. You sit up, lace your jungle boots, and feel the dull ache from old shrapnel still buried in your back. Outside, generators hum and a distant artillery battery pops off harassing fire. You tuck your small Bible into your chest pocket, rub the rosary between your fingers, and head for the chapel tent.
0610 hours — Camp Chapel Tent, FOB Loc Ninh — May 2, 1968
You kneel on a wooden ammo crate in the half-dark chapel, head bowed, when the camp loudspeaker crackles to life with screaming and gunfire. A team is pinned down across the fence — across the border. You hear the panicked voice of a friend calling for extraction. You stand up so fast you knock the crate over. You don’t grab your rifle. You grab your medical bag and your Bowie knife and run.
0635 hours — Helipad, FOB Loc Ninh — May 2, 1968
You sprint across the red-dirt helipad just as a UH-1 Huey is lifting. You jump on the skid and pull yourself in. The crew chief stares at you. You’re carrying only a knife, a medical bag, and the clothes on your back. The pilot looks back, nods once, and pulls pitch. The world tilts as you climb into the white morning haze toward Cambodia.
0655 hours — Aboard Huey, en route to Cambodian border — May 2, 1968
