Medal of Honor recipient Bennie G. Adkins, who died in April from complications associated with COVID-19, will be buried Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery.
According to a post on The Bennie Adkins Foundation Facebook page, Adkins’ body will be escorted Monday morning from Opelika, Alabama to the airport in Atlanta, Georgia.
“The public is invited to share in the recognition by pausing in silence at, 7:00 am, outside Jeffcoat-Trant Funeral Home in Opelika, or along the route, which will proceed to Interstate 85 and onward to Atlanta,” the post reads.
“Command Sgt. Major Adkins always insisted that the men with whom he served were the real heroes and not himself,” said Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones "The noblest quality of a true leader; placing others before self. That is who Bennie Adkins was. I will forever be grateful to have met him. Our nation needs men like him.”
Adkins died April 17 at the age of 86. He received the Medal of Honor in 2014 for his actions during a battle in Vietnam in March of 1966. Adkins and his men were outnumbered and outgunned by the Viet Cong in that fight. He told the story of the battle in his book, “A Tiger Among Us,” which was co-written by Katie Lamar Jackson, also of Opelika.
"During the 38-hour battle and 48 hours of escape and evasion, fighting with mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, small arms and hand grenades, it was estimated that Sgt. First Class Adkins killed between 135 and 175 of the enemy while sustaining 18 different wounds to his body," his MoH citation reads.
Adkins would go on to serve 30 years in the Army, much of that time with the Green Berets. His burial originally was scheduled for earlier this year but was delayed because of concerns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Adkins will be laid to rest at 9 a.m. EST with full military honors at Arlington, where he will join his wife Mary, who died Feb. 12, 2019, and was buried there.
Wednesday’s service will be streamed live here.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com
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