IN MEMORIUM – Command Sergeant Major Bennie G. Adkins, US Army

His Medal of Honor citation in part reads: “During the thirty-eight hour battle and forty-eight hours of escape and evasion, fighting with mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, small arms, and hand grenades, it was estimated that Sergeant First Class Adkins killed between 135 and 175 of the enemy while sustaining eighteen different wounds to his body.”

He died at age 86 of the Chinese Plague.

He went home with the others of A-102, 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces. He went home to his wife who proceeded him in death.

His son said by way of brief eulogy, “We want his legacy to not only be his life in the military, but what he did afterwards; how he went on to school, gained an education, started a local business, and especially his support of the community.”

RIP Sergeant Major, your life is your memorial and your benediction.

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14 COMMENTS

  3. RIP Sargent Major.
    35 years ago I went to tech school with a recently retired sergeant major from 5th group his name was Jack Wells he was a friend and an inspiration. I imagine they knew each other and I’m sure they’re sitting reminiscing , and sharing a beer.

  4. The heights achievable by humans are always astonishing, when revealed to us by heroes such as he. The whole world is diminished when they pass.

    -Kle.

    • Every time somebody like the Sergeant Major passes on, it’s like a massive, valuable, library was burned to the ground.

  5. I had an (all too brief) acquaintance with a guy named Fred. Turned out he was Fred Rabo–

    http://www.482nd.org/h2x-mickey

    This is Fred’s plane going down with him in the left seat–

    http://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/6562

    The plane exploded and Fred was thrown clear. He regained consciousness while falling and pulled his rip cord, landing in a lake. The Germans fished him out and he wound up in Stalag Luft I.

    What prompted me to write this is the brief eulogy above. Fred did the same. He returned home to Chico, CA, went back to farming, raised a family, and was active in his church and community, especially with young folks involved in the 4-H program.

    Libraries indeed.

    • The great Roman general, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, returned after winning the war to his plow, rather than become a dictator. George Washington was inspired by him and did the same.

      Roman generals in the late Empire behaved very differently.

  8. “…it’s like a massive, valuable, library was burned to the ground.”

    Moved by that.

    Rest in Peace, rise in glory.

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