N.C. death row inmate receives medals earned in Vietnam
James Floyd Davis would never know freedom again.
Now 62 years old, slightly stooped with thick reading glasses and pasty skin, he looks far removed from the wild-eyed loner who snapped in a violent, bloody spree 14 years ago.
And he looks far removed from the tanned, wiry young man who traded an abusive home life for two tours in the jungles of Vietnam – and a chunk of shrapnel that still throbs in his thigh when the weather turns cold.
All of that past, all of that horror and hurt, stared through thick reading glasses at Jim Johnson as the retired Fayetteville therapist tried to discover who James Davis was.
By Executive Order 9277, dated December 3, 1942, the decoration was extended to be applicable to all services and required that regulations of the Services be uniform in application as far as practicable. This executive order also authorized the award only for wounds received.