The Medal of Honor has always hung heavily around Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta's neck. On Wednesday, he finally got to take it off.
In a ceremony marking the 173rd Airborne Brigade's new memorial to all the brigade's soldiers who earned the military's highest award, the former Subway sandwich maker unfastened the medal's blue ribbon from his neck and handed it over to the brigade commander.
"It can't be with me because it's ours," said Giunta. In 2010, for his heroic actions during an ambush in Afghanistan, became the first living man to earn the medal since the Vietnam War.
"I want this to stay in Vicenza, Italy, with the 173rd, with the men and women who earn this every single day through their selflessness and sacrifice," he said.
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Giunta, then a 22-year-old specialist with B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, was several nights into an October 2007 mission in the Korengal Valley when his unit was ambushed and began taking casualties. He repeatedly exposed himself to fire to pull fellow soldiers to safety and threw grenades to advance into a wall of bullets, Alone he charged headlong as bullets whizzed past toward enemy fighters, whom he saw carrying off a wounded American, one of his best friends.
"Sal never broke stride. He leapt forward. He took aim. He killed one of the insurgents and wounded the other, who ran off," President Barack Obama said at Giunta's ceremony.
Giunta's friend, Sgt. Joshua Brennan, died from his wounds, as did the platoon medic, Spc. Hugo Mendoza.
Such losses make it hard for surviving soldiers to accept their medals for heroism. So does the military "band of brothers and sisters" ethos: No one does anything alone. "Hearing the Medal of Honor is like a slap in the face," Giunta told Vanity Fair several years ago. "I don't think you know what I did. I didn't do s---."
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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/07/09/soldier-gives-his-medal-honor-brigade-he-says-earned-it.html?ESRC=airforce-a_170712.nl
