Who is Colonel Paris D Davis? Know about the Vietnam War veteran’s awards, family and military career

Retired Army Col. Paris D Davis received the Medal of Honor from US President Joe Biden on Friday. He was nominated for his heroism during the Vietnam War.

Who is Colonel Paris D Davis?

Born in 1939, in Cleveland, Ohio, Davis studied political science on an ROTC scholarship at Southern University, Louisiana. At the age of 20, he was commissioned as an Army reserve armor officer. He then graduated from Airborne and Ranger schools and was selected for the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. He went on to serve in Korea.

Davis was then deployed to Vietnam during which he prevented the capture of three American soldiers and also sustained multiple gunshot wounds.

“On June 18, 1965, he commanded a team of inexperienced South Vietnamese, along with Special Forces Soldiers, against a superior enemy force. Over the course of two days, Davis selflessly led a charge to neutralize enemy emplacements, called for precision artillery fire, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, and prevented the capture of three American soldiers (Robert Brown, John Reinberg, and Billy Waugh) while saving their lives with a medical extraction,” US Army said in its official website.

For his heroism in the war, Davis received several accolades, including the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device, and the Air Medal with “V” device.

Following the war, Davis attended Command and General Staff College and the Naval War College. He went on to serve with the Army staff, the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Headquarters, US Army European Command before retiring from the Army in 1985. He was inducted into the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame in 2019.

Meanwhile, after retiring from the Army, Davis published the Metro Herald newspaper for nearly three decades in Alexandria, Virginia.

Davis currently lives in Virginia. He has three children.