#sal giunta

[yesthebatmanme]

It’s always great to see Jim Lee drawing Batman!

[soldierporn]

Giunta gives Medal of Honor to 173rd Airborne.

Former Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta gives his Medal of Honor to 173rd Airborne Brigade Commander Colonel Greg Anderson during a ceremony marking a new memorial to the brigade's 18 Medal of Honor awardees on July 6, 2017, in Vicenza, Italy. Giunta, who was awarded the medal in 2010, said it belonged to the brigade.

(Article and photo by NANCY MONTGOMERY/STARS AND STRIPES, 7 JUL 2017. Source.)

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.

Giunta’s gift to the brigade came near the beginning of a casual, 45-minute event in which privates, children, and civilians strolled with war heroes, sergeants major and a major general along a brick walkway on a balmy Italian evening. The walkway, stretching from the brigade headquarters to the gym, is lined with 18 memorials to men who, on what was frequently the worst and final day of their lives, displayed conspicuous gallantry and uncommon valor.

Two fought in World War II, 13 fought in Vietnam and three fought in Afghanistan, including Giunta, Sgt. Kyle White and Staff Sgt. Ryan Pitts. All are remembered with a stone pedestal bearing plaques that show their faces and recite their heroic deeds.

Brigade commander Colonel Greg Anderson says the 173rd is the most decorated brigade in the Army. “I don’t say that to brag. I don’t say it as a point of pride,” he said. “I say that to emphasize that the brigade has always received the difficult missions.”

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---.”

On Wednesday, he acknowledged a six-year struggle to come to terms with the honor. “I’m not here because I’m a great soldier. I’m here because I served with great soldiers,” he said.

Giunta has spent the past several years on the speakers’ circuit. In a few weeks, he will be an economics major at Colorado State University. His wife, Jennifer, a registered nurse, attended the ceremony and took all the adulation of her husband in stride. “We have a regular life at home,” she said. The couple have two children.

The brigade had planned to bring retired Lt. Col. Alfred Rascon to the event. Rascon, who was unable to attend, was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2000 for his actions as a medic in Vietnam in 1964, when he repeatedly used his body to shield the men he worked to save from enemy fire.

But other Vietnam vets made the trip, including Dave Gardner, from Memphis, Tenn. “We were the beginning of this,” he said, referring to the 173rd’s storied involvement in Vietnam.

“You want to see what people are doing with your legacy.”

Gardner, 70, who said he spent 43 months in combat and whose son is an Army Ranger now in Iraq on his fifth deployment, assayed the new memorial. “Marvelous,” he said.

[emma-howard-multigenre-blog]

Medal of Honor

The Medal of Honor is the United State’s highest military honor; however, some people are wondering if the standard for this award is too high.  Others say it takes too long to earn after the event occurred.  This is what I’ll be looking at.

According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates (Larry Shaughnessy), it can take the Department of Defense two to three years for a request for a Medal of Honor to go through.  Compare this to the less than a year it took for Sal Giunta’s application to move through the various ranks of the army.  Sal Giunta is the tenth recipient for the Medal of Honor in the Afghanistan war.  He is one of the few soldiers who was awarded the Medal of Honor non-posthumously.  Although I understand that the process of deciding whether or not to award someone the highest military honor is complicated, this seems like far too long.  The Medal of Honor is a big deal, and many facts must be checked and double-checked, but that’s the case with alot of the governments responsibilities and actions.  I believe there could be a way to make this go faster.

I do not believe that the standard for the Medal of Honor is too high.  The idea behind an award of that stature is that not many people will earn it, due to the immense bravery needed to earn this award.  It’s designed for the people who go above and beyond; more specifically, “a person who distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty”.  

I do, however, think that the requirements for the award may need to be revised to consider changes in how wars are fought.  Nowadays, most fighting is long ranged attacks, with improvised explosives.  I believe the standards for the Medal of Honor should be revised, but not brought down.

A total of 3,466 medals have been awarded: 19 of these were for people who got the medal twice. Since the end of WWII, 401 Medals have been awarded.  384 (96%) of these Medals came from Korean and Vietnam war.  4 Medals were awarded for service in the Iraq war and 10 in the Afghanistan war.  Is this too few, or is it as Robert Gates says, the way we fight has changed.   If the way we fight has changed, shouldn’t we consider altering the requirements to the award for honor while fighting?

          Larry Shaughnessy   “Medal of Honor takes moment to earn, years to receive”   CNN   Written: November 16, 2010   web article   Accessed: March, 26th, 2014   http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/16/medal.of.honor.giunta.process/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

[soldierporn]

I've come a long way since the day they first told me I'd been recommended for the Medal of Honor. That day, all I could say was, "Fuck you," because that's what I really felt. A medal? For what? My buddies died that day. There is nothing to celebrate. I did what any of my fellow soldiers would have done, got lucky, and lived through it. For that you want to give me a seat at such a prestigious table? No thanks. But standing there, I get it now. I can't help but be moved beyond words. I can't help but understand: this isn't for me. It's for all of us.

from Living With Honor, by Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta. Medal of Honor recipient for actions in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan in 2007. [page 3]

[soldierporn]

SOLDIER STORIES: The Sal Giunta Story

On 16 NOV 2010, Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta of the 173rd Airborne became the first living Medal of Honor recipient since the Vietnam War. This 14-minute video tells the story of his actions in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley during the deployment chronicled in the movie "Restrepo." (Click here for the embedded video of the full movie.) 

[jbloglife-blog]

Sal Giunta, 25

The fact that Sal is even on this blog is probably not what Sal wants. The thought of changing his name would be of no consequence. Sal is the first living recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor since Vietnam, so he's easily searchable. So let me first apologize to Sal if this comes across as anything but respectful of your humility and by no means do I intend this as some further boost to your fame.

I watched the Av's game last night and it was "Military Appreciation Night," where Sal was recognized for his heroics and given his own team jersey. My curiosity piqued, I researched to find that Sal had run into enemy fire to save the lives of his team. Instead of giving the blueprint speech of "I'm no hero. I did what anyone would do," Giunta made it clear by other means. He said this, "I'm not at peace with it at all, and coming and talking about it and people wanting to shake my hand because of it, it hurts me, because it's not what I want. And to be with so many people doing so much stuff and then to be singled out- and put forward. I mean, everyone did something."

To be genuinely humble is not something that anyone can imitate. Giunta is just some kid from Iowa who wanted to be soldier and his actions were nothing short of what a soldier would do, but Giunta didn't have to say that, because authenticity of character doesn't have to be said, it's something felt in the way a person presents him or herself. Giunta does not shun the spotlight because of some fear of public speaking or because of pride or because of some societal-based version of being polite.

Giunta shuns the spotlight because he believes the spotlight should not exist.

It was once said that a real hero is only a person who knows the right thing to do and when to do it. Over time that has loosely translated into this idea of being able to step up, to step forward, if you will.

But I say, "No."

A true hero knows when to step down...to step back.

My hat is off to Giunta and his team and all the men and women who fight and die in service of all of us, but for Giunta, my hat is also off for other reasons.

[mangleopolis-blog]

The room stood silent now, everyone crying, everyone at attention--the medal forgotten, the war forgotten, the politics forgotten, everything forgotten but the one irreconcilable fact that a mother had lost her son and there wasn't a damn thing anyone in that room could do for her to make this story turn out well.

From War - Sebastian Junger, at the Medal of Honor ceremony of Sal Giunta

[truewarstory]

Fuck you... that sounds great in theory, sounds really awesome in theory, but it's not. What's it worth--Brennan, Mendoza?

On receiving the Medal of Honor, Sal Giunta