Sanders Williams understands Black History Month firsthand.
A helicopter pilot in Vietnam, he received a Purple Heart for his heroism during the war and was deployed to defend the nation’s capital from riots after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Today, the 75-year old resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, routinely tells his grandson to take personal responsibility for his success, referencing the 1967 “life’s blueprint” speech that King gave in Philadelphia roughly half a year before his death.
“You just have to be the best you can be whatever it is and work hard,” Mr. Williams told The Washington Times in an interview. “You have to do the things necessary.”
An Alabama native, Mr. Williams enlisted in the U.S. Army at age 18. He piloted a Huey helicopter in the Vietnam War and flew medevac operations from 1965 to 1968, interrupted briefly by a serious wound to his thigh that earned him the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.
“I earned it for being wounded in action while pursuing the enemy,” Mr. Williams said. “We were coming to pick up wounded soldiers and couldn’t land, so we were hovering above the tree line when a gunshot hit my left leg.”
Most of the time, he said, his missions were “grab and go” situations that lasted only 2 or 3 minutes.
“You dropped the basket and hoisted it back up to get out as soon as possible,” Mr. Williams said. “If you stayed only an hour, your chances of survival were great. The longer you stayed, the more you became a target.”
But he doesn’t feel like a hero for piloting rescue missions in Vietnam.
“I felt like it had to be done and it was a service to my country,” Mr. Williams said. “I did what I had to do.”
Mr. Williams was finishing his tour in Vietnam when news broke of King’s assassination in April 1968.
“It hurt because I was in Vietnam at the time and I grew up in a small town 25 miles south of Selma,” Mr. Williams said. “I didn’t know Dr. King personally, but his assistant Dr. Ralph Abernathy was the brother of my high school principal. We grew up about 5 miles from each other.”
Returning to the U.S., he was stationed at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division briefly before the Army sent him to Washington.
“We were activated to support D.C. police during the 1968 riot and I fell in love with the city,” he said.
After leaving the Army, he settled in the District and spent two decades with the Metropolitan Police Department. He retired in 1992 as a chief pilot.
“We flew routine patrols, track patrols, river patrols, aerial photographs, VIP transports, a few medevacs — a little bit of everything,” he said of his police career. “Both the army and the police required a lot of discipline and teamwork.”
In 1992, Mr. Williams moved with his wife to College Park, where he suffered a fall on his basement stairs in September 2020 that permanently limited the mobility in his left shoulder and arm.
But Mr. Williams said he and his wife of 53 years are grateful to have a military nonprofit to assist them and their family nearby. His son served as a Prince George’s County police officer until 2009.
“I didn’t expect it at first, but I think it’s good that he did that,” Mr. Williams said. “Today it’s a whole new world as far as crime and violence go. It wasn’t quite as bad when I was a policeman.”
Mr. Williams is aware that Vietnam War veterans are dwindling, but said he makes a point of keeping up with his friends to remember the past.
“Two or three years ago, we met at the VFW and various restaurants pretty regularly,” Mr. Williams said. “With the virus, we mostly talk on the phone now.”