Obama to Award Medal of Honor to Afghan War Vet

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2010 — The Medal of Hon­or will be award­ed for the first time to a liv­ing vet­er­an of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, White House offi­cials announced today in a writ­ten state­ment.

Army Staff Sgt. Sal­va­tore Giun­ta received a phone call from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma yes­ter­day, thank­ing him for his ser­vice. Oba­ma informed the infantry­man that he would receive the nation’s high­est award for his ser­vice and extra­or­di­nary brav­ery in bat­tle, the state­ment said. 

The event occurred Oct. 25, 2007, in east­ern Afghanistan’s Koren­gal Val­ley. Giun­ta was a spe­cial­ist at the time and rifle team leader. He served in Com­pa­ny B, 2nd Bat­tal­ion, 503rd Air­borne Infantry Reg­i­ment, 173rd Air­borne Brigade Com­bat Team, based out of Vicen­za, Italy. 

Giun­ta over­came being sep­a­rat­ed from his unit, evad­ed poten­tial ene­my cap­tors and risked his life to res­cue two fel­low sol­diers. His unit was divid­ed dur­ing the gun bat­tle. One fel­low sol­dier was exposed to ene­my fire when Giun­ta left his cov­er to pull the sol­dier to safety. 

The ene­my con­tin­ued to engage Giun­ta and the sol­dier as they worked to link up with their squad. Dur­ing the move­ment, Giun­ta noticed two insur­gents car­ry­ing the sec­ond sol­dier, try­ing to take him captive. 

Giun­ta imme­di­ate­ly engaged the com­bat­ants, killing one and wound­ing anoth­er. He pro­vid­ed med­ical aid to the sol­dier while oth­ers pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty. The sol­dier even­tu­al­ly died of his wounds, but Giunta’s actions pre­vent­ed him from stay­ing in ene­my hands. 

The White House state­ment did not say when Giun­ta will receive his medal. 

Giun­ta, 25, is a native of Iowa, and enlist­ed in the Army in Novem­ber 2003. He deployed twice to Afghanistan, and cur­rent­ly is sta­tioned in Vicen­za. He will become the eighth Medal of Hon­or recip­i­ent for actions in oper­a­tions Iraqi Free­dom and Endur­ing Freedom. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →