Army airborne soldier first living Recipient since 1972

Editor’s note:

Just 30 minutes ago the story broke that Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta will soon be awarded the Medal of Honor for his 2007 actions in Afghanistan.

This is the first living recipient since Halloween nigh, 1972 when U.S. Navy SEAL Mike Thornton saved his shipmates from annihilation in a mission gone wrong north of the DMZ in Vietnam. 

I was working on this post since this morning, irate because of the delay – for years—to award the Medal to a living American hero.

It has been almost three years since Staff Sgt. Sal Giunta, right, fought through a barrage of fire to repel enemy fighters in a fierce battle in Afghanistan.

His actions saved the lives of several other soldiers.

His commanding officer nominated him for the Medal of Honor after the. A relatively simple process that required only a year or 18 months at the height of World War II, now slogs along for years or even decades as government and the military politicians continue to deprive America of its heroes.

The heroic actions of Giunta and the exploits of some of his 173rd Airborne paratrooper buddies in that unit are vividly chronicled in Sebastian Junger’s book “War” and the documentary “Restrepo” (which premiered last June). The two spent a total of five months with a Battle Company platoon and the book and film show the tremendous challenges these men faced and overcame in the treacherous Korengal Valley.

Just for emphasis…. a documentary and a book were written, filmed, edited, printed, published and shown long before Pentagon pencil pushers can decide whether one of America’s best can be publicly recognized by a grateful nation.

If justice delayed is justice denied… what must be said of intentionally delaying the valor award decision when the first-person, straight forward, eye witness accounts are the first best evidence… and should be the only evidence?

Consider the case of WWII B-29 air crewman Henry “Red” Erwin who although severely injured and burned,  successfully saved his plane by disposing of the smoke-generating bomb which detonated on board. For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor one week later, on April 19, 1945.

Because doctors believed he wouldn’t survive Gen. Curtis LeMay ordered that the only Medal of Honor in the Pacific immediately available must be removed from its display case in Hawaii. The case was broken into, the Medal removed and immediately flown to Erwin’s bedside.

Yes, that was when a theater commander could award the Medal; the Secretary of the branch, the Pentagon and the politicians were not involved except to ceremonial purpose.

Perhaps it’s time to return to that policy.

If it were you would you want your comrades, and your theater commander to make the decision, or would you want some Secretary of Defense who was appointed because he contribute money to the right politicians?

This is what has become of America’s process to bestow it’s highest and most meaningful honor:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates rejected a Marine Corps recommendation that Sgt. Rafael Peralta receive the Medal of Honor for sacrificing his life to save his fellow Marines by pulling an enemy grenade under him after being wounded.

A Gates-appointed panel unanimously concluded that the report on Peralta’s action that included the testimony of marines who were eyewitnesses to Peralta’s heroism, did not meet the standard of “no margin of doubt or possibility of error.”

This news broke when I was in Denver for the 2008 Medal of Honor convention and I took a quick survey of the Recipients I knew… they were uniformly astounded that a Recipient would have a hand in judging another’s heroism. The conflict is obvious.

As one put it gesturing around the patio bar where his peers were gathered, “I wouldn’t want any of these sonsabitches deciding on my Medal.” It was said with a grin, but he meant it.

The “panel” which found Peralta unworthy of The Medal was made up of civilian pathologists and one Medal of Honor Recipient who remains unidentified.

They concluded that the mortally wounded Marine could not have intentionally reached for the grenade after suffering a serious head wound. Yet four other experts — Peralta's battalion surgeon, and two neurosurgeons and a neurologist who examined the autopsy reports — said Peralta could have knowingly reached for the grenade. They say the ricochet bullet was traveling at a "low velocity" and would not have immediately killed him.

Though disqualified from the Medal of Honor, the patriotic and astute and 10,000-mile and three year-distant “panel” didn’t have a problem with him receiving the Navy Cross… second only to the Medal…. for these actions:

The grenade came to rest near Sergeant Peralta's head. Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Sergeant Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast and shielding fellow Marines only feet away. Sergeant Peralta succumbed to his wounds. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Sergeant Peralta reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Only in our despicable government could such idiocy rule the day… every day and in every way. Peralta’s family refused to accept the Navy Cross, and I do not blame them in the least.

The decision is “almost like somebody called me a liar,” said Marine Sergeant Nicholas Jones who was with Peralta that day and saw what happened as did several others who submitted sworn statements as to what they saw.

Nonetheless, Peralta’s actions have become part of Marine Corps lore, as drill sergeants and officer-candidate instructors repeat it to new Marines to this day.

   

The following is an account of Giunta’s MOH action.

Around midnight, 1st Platoon filed into the KOP, eyes bulging, drenched in sweat, river water and blood. They were hauling the belongings of Mohammad Tali, a high-value target. Specialist Sal Giunta had killed him.

The next day I climbed up to the KOP and found Specialist Giunta, a quiet Iowan lofted into a heroism he didn’t want. His officers were putting him up for a medal of honor. Giunta told me the story of that night, how they’d barely moved 300 yards before they were blasted. Giunta was fourth in the file when it happened, and he jumped into a ditch. He couldn’t figure out why they were getting hit from where Joshua Brennan and baby-faced Franklin Eckrode should have been leading up ahead. He knew it must be bad, but as he leapt up to check he got whacked with a bullet in his armored chest plate. It threw him down. They were taking fire from three sides. He grabbed some grenades: “I couldn’t throw as far as Sergeant Gallardo. We were looking like retards and I decided to run out in front of the grenades.” He found Eckrode with gunshot wounds. “He was down but moving and trying to fix his SAW” — a heavy machine gun — “so I just kept on running up the trail. It was cloudy. I was running and saw dudes. Plural.”

He couldn’t figure out who they were. Then he realized they were hauling Brennan off through the forest. “I started shooting,” he recalled. “I emptied that magazine. They dropped Brennan.” Giunta scrambled up to Brennan. He was a mess. His lower jaw was shot off. “He was still conscious. He was breathing. He was asking for morphine. I said, ‘You’ll get out and tell your hero stories,’ and he was like, ‘I will, I will.’ ”

They were still taking fire. No one was there to help. Hugo Mendoza, their platoon medic, was back in another ditch, calling: “I’m bleeding out. I’m dying.” Giunta saw Brennan’s eyes go back. His breathing was bad. Giunta got Brennan to squeeze his hand. A medic showed up out of the sky. They prepared Brennan to be hoisted to the medevac in a basket. Soon he would be dead.

As the medevacs flew out, Sergeant Sandifer had talked in air cover: Slasher, the AC-130. The pilot was a woman and, Sandifer later told me, “It was so reassuring for us to hear her voice.” She spotted guys hiding and asked if she was clear to engage. “ ‘You’re cleared hot,’ I told her. And we killed two people together.” But, at this point, the killings were no consolation to Sandifer.

As Giunta said, “The richest, most-trained army got beat by dudes in manjammies and A.K.’s.” His voice cracked. He was not just hurting, he was in a rage. And there was nothing for him to do with it but hold back his tears, and bark — at the Afghans for betraying them, at the Army for betraying them. He didn’t run to the front because he was a hero. He ran up to get to Brennan, his friend. “But they” — he meant the military — “just keep asking for more from us.” His contract would be up in 18 days but he had been stop-lossed and couldn’t go home. Brennan himself was supposed to have gotten out in September. He’d been planning to go back to Wisconsin where his dad lived, play his guitar and become a cop.

Sandifer was questioning why they were sticking it out in the Korengal when the people so clearly hated them. He was haunted by Mendoza’s voice calling to him: “I’m bleeding out. I’m dying.” He worried that the Korengal was going to push them off the deep end. In his imagination it had already happened. One day an Afghan visited their fire base, Sandifer told me. “I was staring at him, on the verge of picking up my weapon to shoot him,” he said. “I know right from wrong, but even if I did shoot him everyone at the fire base would have been O.K. We’re all to the point of ‘Lord of the Flies.’ ” And they still had 10 months to go in the Korengal.

Additional stories here, here and here.

Comments

[ashley]

Visit http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/giunta/to learn more about SSG Giunta and his acts of heroism.

[pontiff alex]

At least he didn't have to wait 40 years....I'm sure he'll wear it in great reverence, as all M O H do...

[Jinger Jarrett]

Bet this will be a major setback for the homosexual crowd. After all, this guy is straight.

For all that it's been shoved down our throats how patriotic that homosexuals are, where are their heroes? LOL

Anyway, this is good news. I wish we could pin all of the medals on while they're still alive. They deserve every honor we can give them.

Jinger Jarrett
US Army Veteran

[geneinashfork]

Semper Fi, USMC Msgt. ret. 1961-1988