A legendary Reconnaissance Marine who saved his nine-man team during an ambush in South Vietnam is one step closer to receiving the Medal of Honor.
The Senate has passed a bill that would waive the award’s time requirement for retired Maj. James Capers Jr., who was shot twice and suffered 17 shrapnel wounds and other injuries during the April 1967 ambush. Not only did Capers lead his team to safety, but he twice tried to get out of the helicopter carrying the rest of his teammates so that it would be light enough to take off, and had to be pulled back inside by his men.
Authored by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), the legislation authorizes President Donald Trump to award the Medal of Honor to Capers and cleared the Senate on Tuesday. It is now headed to the White House.
Under current policy, the Medal of Honor must be awarded within five years of the date of action. If someone is recommended for the medal after that point, there has to be new information about the day or days in question, or they need a waiver through Congress.
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Speaking to Task & Purpose on Wednesday, Capers, 88, said he was “delighted” that the Senate had passed the bill.
“I will tell you: This really isn’t about me,” Capers said. It’s about the men who didn’t make it home, my troops that followed me.”
Norman issued a statement following the bill’s passage, praising Capers for “risking everything to save his fellow Marines while severely wounded” during the Vietnam War.
“His heroism has been known for decades, but the recognition he deserves has been far too long in coming,” Norman said in the statement.
Capers is the first Black Marine to lead a reconnaissance company and to receive a battlefield commission. The 1967 ambush began when hidden explosives detonated. Capers suffered shrapnel wounds to his abdomen and other parts of his body and a broken leg.
Despite his wounds, he ordered a mortar strike on the team’s position to keep the enemy at bay. Then, even after losing a significant amount of blood and being administered morphine, he led his team to a helicopter landing zone. When a helicopter landed, Capers refused to get on board unless the crew took the body of the team’s military working dog.
Capers was originally awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device for his heroism, which was upgraded to the Silver Star in 2010.
Military veterans have long advocated for Capers to receive the U.S. military’s highest military award for valor. Last year, 133 retired senior enlisted leaders signed a letter written by retired Marine Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia that urged Trump to award Capers the Medal of Honor. Battaglia served as Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2011 to 2015.
“I’m grateful to finally see his heroism, gallantry, and courage in combat appropriately recognized. Jim Capers is the epitome of an American Warrior,” Battaglia told Task & Purpose on Wednesday.
Past efforts to have Capers’ Silver Star upgraded to the Medal of Honor faced bureaucratic obstacles, said Brooks Tucker, a former Department of Veterans Affairs official who has been working with lawmakers on the issue.
“The argument that was given by the administrative side of the Navy is we don’t have any ‘new information’ to justify looking at this award again,” Tucker, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel who is currently a commissioner on the American Battle Monuments Commission, told Task & Purpose on Wednesday. “We simply said to people: Look at this logically; this makes no sense. And enough people who mattered looked at this and said, ‘Yeah it makes sense to me. I don’t know why we need any new information. We have it all here. We’ve had it since 1967. We’ve had it since 2009.’ So that’s how we ended up where we are today. We just basically beat the bushes with common sense, with illustrations of fact, and we rebuffed the bureaucratic answer.”
