A claymore mine tore open his abdomen, shattered his legs, and left him with nineteen wounds. Even so, James Capers Jr. did not give up.
It was 1967 when the then-second lieutenant was leading a nine-man Force Reconnaissance team in the Phu Loc area of Vietnam, ambushed by a vastly superior North Vietnamese force. Blinded by blood and pain, he ordered a mortar attack on his own position to halt the enemy advance. At the extraction point, he tried twice to jump out of the helicopter to lighten the load so his team could escape. All of his men survived.
What came afterward was another battle: General Bruno Hochmuth wanted to nominate him for the Medal of Honor before dying that same year, 1967, but the recognition was lost in bureaucracy for nearly six decades. It was not until 2025 that Congressman Ralph Norman managed to push through legislation to rectify it. On June 18, 2026, at age 88, Capers finally received the medal from President Donald Trump at the White House. His wife and son, who died in 2003, did not live to see it.
