WILMINGTON, N.C (WECT) – President Donald Trump awarded the Medal of Honor to retired Marine Major James Capers Jr. on Thursday, June 18, at the White House.
Capers owns a home in Wilmington and lives in the Jacksonville area. He received the medal for actions from March 31 to April 3, 1967, while serving as a team leader with 3d Force Reconnaissance Company, 3d Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam.
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded in the U.S.
During a four-day reconnaissance patrol, [Capers] and his team were tasked with locating a North Vietnamese regimental base camp. Despite making contact with a numerically superior enemy force on three separate occasions, he tenaciously continued the mission. He successfully directed fire onto an enemy base camp, thwarting an impending attack on a nearby Marine battalion. On the final day, his patrol was ambushed by a claymore mine and came under a dense barrage of enemy fire, where he sustained multiple severe wounds. Ignoring his injuries and extreme blood loss, he continued to lead his team, coordinate supporting fire, and direct their movement to an extraction site. Refusing to be evacuated before all his men were safe, he ensured the entire team was extracted before finally boarding the helicopter.
In 1983, Capers purchased WWIL 1490 AM in Wilmington, making it the only Black-owned radio station in the city at that time.
Trump also awarded the Medal of Honor on Thursday to Marine Colonel John W. Ripley, posthumously, and retired Army Major Nicholas Dockery.
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