_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 10, 2010
Readout of the President's call with Specialist Salvatore Giunta
Yesterday, President Obama spoke with Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta to inform him that he will be awarded the Medal of Honor for acts of gallantry at the risk of his life that went above and beyond the call of duty. Sergeant Giunta will be the first living service member to be awarded the Medal of Honor for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. The President thanked Sergeant Giunta for his service and extraordinary bravery in battle.
Further information about the date and time of the ceremony will be released at a later date.
ACTION FROM WHICH THE MEDAL OF HONOR WAS EARNED:
Then-Specialist Salvatore A. Giunta distinguished himself by acts of gallantry at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a rifle team leader with Company B, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry Regiment during combat operations against an armed enemy in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan on October 25, 2007.
When an insurgent force ambush split Specialist Giunta's squad into two groups, he exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a comrade back to cover. Later, while engaging the enemy and attempting to link up with the rest of his squad, Specialist Giunta noticed two insurgents carrying away a fellow soldier. He immediately engaged the enemy, killing one and wounding the other, and provided medical aid to his wounded comrade while the rest of his squad caught up and provided security. His courage and leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon's ability defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow American paratrooper from enemy hands.
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Well done, Staff Sergeant Guinta! [More below the fold]
There is still no excuse for it taking just shy of three years to get to this point in the process. In that, the leadership of the Pentagon should simply be ashamed of themselves. To offer some perspective - an equivalent time in World War II would have meant that an award earned on Guadalcanal, the first major ground campaign in the Pacific, which opened August 1942... would have been awarded during... the final ground campaign of World War II, the invasion of Okinawa.
Gunnery Sergeant John Basilone, who earned his Medal of Honor for actions on Guadalcanal, would never have received it, as he was killed in February 19, 1945, on the opening day of the battle of Iwo Jima. Are you seriously going to propose that our current standard are just higher? I.e., infer that WWII Medals are somehow less likely to rise to the standard now imposed?
You're right - there's no pleasing me.
Which is even more shameful.
I need to send an email to our current G-1 (who spent our recent deployment as the Deputy CoS) and ask how many, if any, MoH noms we had.
Being required to render a salute to a living recipient, a mere Staff Sergeant, may be too much for some egos to bear.
I always *relished* the few opportunities I had to salute putatively subordinate Holders.
But I'm a sentimental old fool.
And I'm assuming there's more to the story then the two paragraph post. Because that's pretty light, for a MOH.
I have no problem with vetting the recommendation. Interviewing the witnesses. But why on earth should that take *years*?
The only reason it's taken years before this was because recommendations were lost in the shuffle, witnesses were lost, etc.
But in this day and age, *years?*
Strikes me as a huge failure of leadership. Prompt rewards, etc?
I hearken back to my example - if you find the multi-year process acceptable, then the bulk of Medals would be awarded after the war was over, in the case of WWII and Korea.
I don't buy it. I can see a year (and that only reluctantly). I admit, the one thing missing from this discussion is *when* was the recommendation submitted. The time limit, I believe, is two years from the event, absent special circumstances. So, if this one sat in an outbox collecting dust until someone got motivated towards the end of the time limit - then it begins to fall into the category of believeable.
Except. All that does, in my mind, is shift the leadership failure to a lower level.
1) "Medal" and "heroism" envy as posited by Russ.
2) The fear that live MOH awardees will somehow embarrass the DoD, WH, or the US at a later date.
3) Plain old bureaucratic inertia, incompetence and inefficiency.
4) And sometimes, a presidential administration that simply "loathes" all things military.
I keep forgetting that "the times aren't changing" they have changed. It is the Twenty First Century!
No agument when it comes to only dead guys getting "the" metal. Never understood that either.
When actions of the brave like he stop or are procrastinated like some of these MOHs, then there's no pleasing at all.
But by all means fix the system. Many of you are in a good positon to push for such.
I am mostly surprised it did not get downgraded to a Letter of Commendation, or maybe an AAM. The awards process in the Army and Navy (having served in both) are abysmal. Commanders are very stingy with awards, maybe moreso in the Navy.
I know when I was told I had a Bronze Star coming for Desert Storm (Army), I had to question what I did, and said "no thanks", although my BC gave them to every other E8 thru O5 in the command. My peers thought I was stupid, but I could not further cheapen the decoration. I only did my job. In retrospect, I probably was. But I sleep well with a clear conscience.
Regards,
CW4
JTG, I don't know to what you're refering, but I don't think either of these are applicable to my comment.