The list of Medal of Honor recipients is full of awardees who received their award posthumously, as the Medal of Honor itself as described doesn’t easily lend itself to the living [my emphasis];
Sec. 578.4 Medal of Honor.
(a) Criteria. The Medal of Honor, established by Joint Resolution of
Congress, 12 July 1862 (amended by Act of 9 July 1918 and Act of 25 July
1963) is awarded in the name of Congress to a person who, while a member
of the Army, distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and
intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty
while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States…[More]
Well, one staff sergeant Salvatore Augustine Giunta beat the almost unbeatable odds by not only saving his brothers from Taliban capture but almost certainly death for himself as well;
late on Oct. 25, 2007, Giunta and his fellow soldiers from B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, were on their way back from a major operation when they are ambushed by the enemy.
Giunta was the fourth soldier from the front; Sgt. Josh Brennan was walking point, according to “War.”
The enemy fired machine-gun and small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from such close range that the Apache attack helicopters overhead were unable to help the soldiers on the ground.
“First Platoon is essentially inside a shooting gallery,” Junger wrote. “Within seconds, every man in the lead squad takes a bullet. Brennan goes down immediately, wounded in eight places.”
As the battle progressed, Giunta “sees two enemy fighters dragging Josh Brennan down the hillside. He empties his M4 magazine at them and starts running toward his friend,” according to the book.
“Giunta jams a new magazine into his gun and yells for a medic. Brennan is lying badly wounded in the open and Giunta grabs him by the vest and drags him behind a little bit of cover.”
Brennan doesn’t survive surgery, [Sebastian] Junger wrote [in a book entitled “War“]
More-formerly http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/07/army_MOH_070101w/
CBS “60 Minutes” is supposed to do a segment on Giunta tonight, and this will be the first time I watch that show in I don’t know how long. Also via Blackfive, National Geographic will air a special on Nov. 29 at 9pm Eastern and Pacific called “Restrepo“, a clip from which is below.
In the modern world where people pick their heroes from a questionable pool, real heroes are available and should be pushed to the front of the line.
He’ll need your prayers, too. Sometimes surviving isn’t as easy as it sounds.
