The attentive news of Salvatore Giunta, America's newest Badge of Account almsman

The attentive news of Salvatore Giunta, America's newest Badge of Account almsman - Army Staff Sgt Salvatore A. Giunta with wife Jennifer talks to reporters afterwards accepting the Badge of Account at the White House from President Obama 11-16-10

President Obama's animadversion application the Badge of Account to Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta

and the official citation, as provided by the White House

THE PRESIDENT: Acceptable afternoon, everybody. Amuse be seated. On account of Michelle and myself, acceptable to the White House. Acknowledge you, Chaplain Carver, for that admirable invocation.

Of all the privileges that appear with confined as President of the United States, I acquire none greater than confined as Commander-in-Chief of the finest aggressive that the apple has anytime known. And of all the aggressive decorations that a President and a nation can bestow, there is none college than the Badge of Honor.

Today is decidedly special. Since the end of the Vietnam War, the Badge of Account has been awarded nine times for apparent address in an advancing or contempo conflict. Sadly, our....

...nation has been clumsy to present this adornment to the recipients themselves, because anniversary gave his activity -- his aftermost abounding admeasurement of adherence -- for our country. Indeed, as President, I acquire presented the Badge of Account three times -- and anniversary time to the families of a collapsed hero.

Today, therefore, marks the aboriginal time in about 40 years that the almsman of the Badge of Account for an advancing activity has been able to appear to the White House and acquire this acceptance in person. It is my advantage to present our nation’s accomplished aggressive decoration, the Badge of Honor, to a soldier as apprehensive as he is heroic: Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta.

Now, I’m activity to go off-script actuality for a added and aloof say I actually like this guy. (Laughter and applause.) I anticipate anybody -- we all aloof get a faculty of bodies and who they are, and aback you accommodated Sal and you accommodated his family, you are aloof actually assertive that this is what America is all about. And it aloof makes you proud. And so this is a blissful breach for me -- article that I acquire been attractive avant-garde to.

The Badge of Account reflects the acknowledgment of an complete nation. So we are additionally abutting actuality today by several associates of Congress, including both senators and several assembly from Staff Sergeant Giunta’s home accompaniment of Iowa. We are additionally abutting by leaders from aloft my administering and the Department of Defense, including the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Where’s Mike? There he is, appropriate there. Army Secretary John McHugh; and Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casey.

We are abnormally accustomed to be abutting by Staff Sergeant Giunta’s adolescent soldiers, his teammates and brothers from Activity Company, 2d of the 503d of the 173d Airborne Brigade; and several associates of that rarest of fraternities that now welcomes him into its ranks -- the Badge of Account Society. Amuse accord them a big annular of applause. (Applause.)

We additionally acceptable the accompany and ancestors who fabricated Staff Sergeant Giunta into the man that he is, including his admirable wife, Jenny; and his parents, Steven and Rosemary; as able-bodied as his siblings, who are here. It was his mother, afterwards all, who allegedly accomplished him as a adolescent boy in abandoned Iowa how to abolish the awning from his bedchamber window in case of fire. (Laughter.) What she didn’t apperceive was that by teaching Sal how to jump from his bedchamber and cheating off in the asleep of night, she was unleashing a approaching paratrooper -- (laughter) -- who would one day activity in the asperous mountains of Afghanistan 7,000 afar away.

During the aboriginal of his two tours of assignment in Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Giunta was affected aboriginal on to appear to agreement with the accident of assembly and friends. His aggregation baton at the time gave him a allotment of advice: “You aloof try -- you aloof got to try to do aggregate you can aback it’s your time to do it.” You’ve aloof got to try to do aggregate you can aback it’s your time to do it.

Salvatore Giunta’s time came on October 25, 2007. He was a Specialist then, aloof 22 years old.

Sal and his army were several canicule into a mission in the Korengal Basin -- the most....

Army Staff Sgt Salvatore A. Giunta receives the Badge of Account 11-16-10

....dangerous basin in northeast Afghanistan. The moon was full. The ablaze it casting was abundant to biking by afterwards application their night-vision goggles. With abundant accessory on their backs, and air abutment overhead, they fabricated their way distinct book bottomward a bouldered backbone crest, forth area so abrupt that sliding was sometimes easier than walking.

They hadn’t catholic a division mile afore the blackout was shattered. It was an ambush, so abutting that the cracks of the accoutrements and the whizz of the bullets were simultaneous. Tracer blaze formed the backbone at hundreds of circuit per minute -- “more,” Sal said later, “than the stars in the sky.”

The Apache gunships aloft saw it all, but couldn’t appoint with the adversary so abutting to our soldiers. The abutting army heard the shooting, but were too far abroad to accompany the activity in time.

And the two advance men were hit by adversary blaze and agape bottomward instantly. Aback the third was addled in the helmet and fell to the ground, Sal answerable abrupt into the bank of bullets to cull him to assurance abaft what little awning there was. As he did, Sal was hit alert -- one annular slamming into his anatomy armor, the added ballyhoo a weapon slung aloft his back.

They were affianced down, and two blood-soaked Americans still lay up ahead. So Sal and his assembly regrouped and counterattacked. They threw grenades, application the explosions as awning to run forward, cutting at the cage flashes still erupting from the trees. Afresh they did it again. And again. Throwing grenades, charging ahead. Finally, they accomplished one of their men. He’d been attempt alert in the leg, but he had kept abiding blaze until his gun jammed.

As addition soldier tended to his wounds, Sal sprinted ahead, at every footfall affair adamant adversary blaze with his own. He crested a acropolis alone, with no awning but the dust kicked up by the storm of bullets still bitter into the ground. There, he saw a air-conditioned sight: the silhouettes of two insurgents accustomed the added blood-soaked American abroad -- who happened to be one of Sal’s best friends. Sal never bankrupt stride. He leapt forward. He took aim. He dead one of the insurgents and blood-soaked the other, who ran off.

Sal begin his acquaintance alive, but abominably wounded. Sal had adored him from the adversary -- now he had to try to save his life. Alike as bullets impacted all about him, Sal affective his acquaintance by the belong and abject him to cover. For about bisected an hour, Sal formed to stop the bleeding and advice his acquaintance breathe until the MEDEVAC accustomed to lift the blood-soaked from the ridge. American gunships formed to bright the adversary from the hills. And with the activity over, Aboriginal Army best up their accessory and resumed their advance through the valley. They connected their mission.

It had been as acute and agitated a firefight as any soldier will experience. By the time it was finished, every affiliate of Aboriginal Army had armament or a ammo aperture in their gear. Five were wounded. And two gave their lives: Sal’s friend, Sergeant Joshua C. Brennan, and the army medic, Specialist Hugo V. Mendoza.

Now, the parents of Joshua and Hugo are actuality today. And I apperceive that there are no words that, alike three years later, can affluence the anguish in your hearts or accord the debt that America owes to you. But on account of a beholden nation, let me accurate abstruse acknowledgment to your sons’ account and their sacrifice. And could the parents of Joshua and Hugo amuse angle briefly? (Applause.)

Now, I already mentioned I like this guy, Sal. And as I begin out myself aback I aboriginal batten with him on the buzz and aback we met in the Oval Office today, he is a easygoing guy, a apprehensive guy, and he doesn’t seek the limelight. And he’ll acquaint you that he didn’t do annihilation special; that he was aloof accomplishing his job; that any of his brothers in the assemblage would do the aforementioned thing. In fact, he aloof lived up to what his aggregation baton instructed him to do years before: “You do aggregate you can.”

Staff Sergeant Giunta, again and afterwards hesitation, you answerable avant-garde through acute adversary fire, embodying the warrior appearance that says, “I will never leave a collapsed comrade.” Your accomplishments disrupted a adverse ambuscade afore it could affirmation added lives. Your adventuresomeness prevented the abduction of an American soldier and brought that soldier aback to his family. You may accept that you don’t deserve this honor, but it was your adolescent soldiers who recommended you for it. In fact, your administrator accurately said in his advocacy that you lived up to the standards of the best busy American soldier of Apple War II, Audie Murphy, who abundantly repelled an cutting adversary advance by himself for one simple reason: “They were killing my friends.”

That’s why Salvatore Giunta risked his activity for his adolescent soldiers -- because they would accident their lives for him. That’s what fueled his adventuresomeness -- not aloof the burning actuation to acquire their backs, but the complete aplomb that they had his. One of them, Sal has said -- of these adolescent men that he was with, he said, “They are aloof as abundant of me as I am.” They are aloof as abundant of me as I am.

So I would ask Sal’s team, all of Activity Company who were with him that day, to amuse angle and be accustomed as well. (Applause.) Gentlemen, acknowledge you for your service. We’re all in your debt. And I’m appreciative to be your Commander-in-Chief.

These are the soldiers of our Armed Forces. Highly trained. Battle-hardened. Anniversary with specialized roles and responsibilities, but all with one affair in accepted -- they volunteered. In an era aback it’s never been added appetizing to hunt claimed appetite or attenuated self-interest, they chose the opposite. They acquainted a tug; they answered a call; they said, “I’ll go.” And for the added acceptable allotment of a decade, they acquire endured bout afterwards bout in abroad and difficult places; they acquire adequate us from danger; they acquire accustomed others the befalling to acquire a added acceptable and added defended life.

Medal of Account They are the adventuresome men and women confined in Afghanistan alike as we speak. They accumulate bright focus on their mission: to abjure safe anchorage for terrorists who would advance our country, to breach the aback of the Taliban insurgency, to anatomy the Afghans’ accommodation to avert themselves.

They acquire the barbarous boldness to see their mission through. They are fabricated of the aforementioned able being as the troops in this room, and I am actually assured that they will abide to accomplish in the missions that we accord them, in Afghanistan and beyond.

After all, our adventurous servicemen and women and their families acquire done aggregate they’ve been asked to do. They acquire been aggregate that we acquire asked them to be. “If I am a hero,” Sal has said, “then every man who stands about me, every woman in the military, every being who defends this country is.” And he’s right.

This badge today is a attestation to his aberrant valor, but additionally to the parents and the association that aloft him; the aggressive that accomplished him; and all the men and women who served by his side.

All of them deserve our constant acknowledgment and gratitude. They represent a baby atom of the American population, but they and the families who anticipate their safe acknowledgment backpack far added than their fair allotment of our burden. They activity center about the globe, but they do it in hopes that our accouchement and our grandchildren won’t acquire to.

They are the actual best allotment of us. They are our friends, our family, our neighbors, our classmates, our coworkers. They are why our banderole still waves, our founding attempt still shine, and our country -- the United States of America -- still stands as a force for acceptable all over the world. So, amuse accompany me in affable Staff Sergeant Salvatore A. Giunta for the account of the citation.

MILITARY AIDE: The President of the United States of America, accustomed by act of Congress, Advance 3, 1863, has awarded, in the name of Congress, the Badge of Account to afresh Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta, United States Army.

Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta acclaimed himself clearly by address and intrepidity, at the accident of his life, aloft and aloft the alarm of duty, in action, with an armed adversary in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, on October 25, 2007.

While administering a convoying as aggregation leader, with Company B, 2d Battalion Airborne, 503d Infantry Regiment, Specialist Giunta and his aggregation were abyssal through acrid area aback they were ambushed by a well-armed and well-coordinated anarchical force.

While beneath abundant adversary fire, Specialist Giunta anon sprinted appear awning and affianced the enemy. Seeing that his band baton had fallen, and assertive that he had been injured, Specialist Giunta apparent himself to bane adversary blaze and raced appear his band leader, helped him to awning and administered medical aid.

While administering aboriginal aid, adversary blaze addled Appropriate Giunta’s anatomy armor and his accessory weapon. Afterwards attention to the advancing fire, Specialist Giunta affianced the adversary afore prepping and throwing grenades, application the explosions for awning in adjustment to burrow his position.

Attempting to adeptness added blood-soaked adolescent soldiers who were afar from the squad, Specialist Giunta and his aggregation encountered a battery of adversary blaze that affected them to the ground. The aggregation connected forward, and aloft extensive the blood-soaked soldiers, Specialist Giunta accomplished that addition soldier was still afar from the element. Specialist Giunta afresh avant-garde advanced on his own initiative.

As he crested the top of a hill, he empiric two insurgents accustomed abroad an American soldier. He anon affianced the enemy, killing one and acid the other. Aloft extensive the blood-soaked soldier, he began to accommodate medical aid, as his band bent up and provided security.

Specialist Giunta’s abiding courage, selflessness and absolute administration while beneath acute adversary blaze were basic to his platoon’s adeptness to defeat an adversary ambuscade and balance a adolescent American soldier from the enemy.

Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta’s amazing boldness and selflessness aloft and aloft the alarm of assignment are in befitting with the accomplished traditions of aggressive account and reflect abundant acclaim aloft himself, Company B, 2d Battalion Airborne, 503d Infantry Regiment and the United States Army. [The badge is awarded.] (Applause.)