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‘Real Forrest Gump’ brings message to Cloverdale students
CLOVERDALE — It was love, not bravery, that compelled a true Hoosier hero to save three of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam nearly 55 years ago.
At least that’s the way Sgt. 1st Class Sammy L. Davis remembers the fateful day in Vietnam that earned him a Medal of Honor and a Purple Heart.
That day, Nov. 18, 1967, was when when Davis, then a private first class, and his artillery battery found themselves badly outnumbered by Viet Cong forces. Though wounded by friendly fire, Davis managed to provide machine gun coverage to his comrads — “brothers” in his words — take over the unit’s burning howitzer and fire several shells, cross a river on an air mattress to rescue three wounded soldiers and then continue fighting.
“I don’t think I’m overly brave,” Davis told Katina Wetter-Wright’s fourth-grade class at Cloverdale Elementary School on Friday. “I kept going because I loved my brothers.”
Asked later why he saved the three men, Davis expressed a similar sentiment.
“Because there wasn’t four,” he said. “I know in my heart that if it was me over there, they’d come save me.”
These statements get to the heart of the message that Davis, known as “The Real Forrest Gump,” delivered to Cloverdale students, first to Wetter-Wright’s class during a special dessert banquet and later to a full school assembly. He didn’t talk like a hard-nosed tough guy, but someone who loves the country, freedom and his fellow man.
“I was hurting tremendously, but I wasn’t going to quit trying” Davis said before segueing into his personal motto, “because you don’t lose until you quit trying.”
Now a resident of Freedom in Owen County, Davis was born in Ohio and raised in California before his family moved to Mooresville when he was a teenager.
He volunteered for the U.S. Army in 1965 and was sent to South Vietnam in March 1967.
Davis’s injuries in battle included wounds from 30 “beehive rounds,” small anti-personnel projectiles that were fired by the hundreds. Seven were still in him after the battle, though the other 23 left their telltale cross-shaped wounds.
While Davis’s story of rescuing multiple men after his own injury echo that of the fictional Forrest Gump’s Vietnam escapades, the connection goes a bit deeper.
The actual footage of President Lyndon B. Johnson giving Davis his Medal of Honor was used in the award-winning 1994 film adaptation of “Forrest Gump,” with Tom Hanks’ face edited in, of course.
It should be noted that Davis did not follow up the award with a mooning of the Commander-in-Chief, but by playing the song “Oh Shenandoah” on his harmonica for LBJ. That song was the subject of another of Davis’s stories.
While overseas, Davis was not writing his mother frequently enough for her liking. In her frustration, she contacted her congressman, who contacted the Pentagon, with the message eventually getting to Davis’s captain.
At the command of the captain, Davis began writing his mother every day. Apparently this was overkill, for after a few weeks she sent him a package with a harmonica, writing, “Son, I hope this helps you not be so bored.”
Delivered the package by his sergeant, Davis was urged to play “Oh Shenandoah,” as the sergeant was from the Shenandoah area of Virginia.
Not yet able to play a tune, Davis soon learned the song and would play it for the sergeant and others, who found it comforting.
“The enemy knew we were there and were awake,” Davis said, “and the rest of the guys knew I was there and was OK.
“Even today,” he continued, “when we’re together, my brothers say, ‘Sam, did you bring your harp?’ And they say when I play, it does their hearts good.”
Ensuring the peace of mind of others — that pretty much sums up the life of a soldier as well as one other message Davis delivered to the youngsters.
“Soldiers fight so that you all can grow up and do what you think is right,” Davis said.
