 |
Giunta Salutes U.S. Troops' Service, Sacrifices
(November 18, 2010) |
 |
|
| WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2010 – Medal of Honor recipient Army
Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta today refused to take sole
credit for his actions in October 2007 on a remote
mountainside in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, when he risked
his life to save the lives of wounded comrades.
Standing before his friends, family and superiors after
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates inducted him into the
Pentagon's Hall of Heroes here today, Giunta was a humble
soldier. |
“To have you all here at the nation's capital for an event like this,
that's positive, but it is so bittersweet,” the 25-year-old
noncommissioned officer said. “We all have lost our friends, our loved
ones, our sons, our brothers, people who are truly close to us.”
Giunta said he has learned many lessons as a member of the 173rd
Airborne Brigade Combat Team's Company B [Battle], 2nd Battalion, 503rd
Infantry Regiment. He also saluted the exploits of his Army
predecessors.
“I've learned almost everything I've ever learned in the Army from the
men in Battle Company,” he said. “To the men in the past, to the men who
have served in Vietnam ... all I could think of when I was growing up, or
when I was [first] in the Army was, ‘Man, if |
|
From left to right: Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates, Army Secretary John McHugh, Medal of Honor recipient Army Staff
Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, his wife Jennifer Giunta, Army Chief of Staff
Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth O. Preston
listen to Giunta's citation during his induction ceremony into the Hall
of Heroes at the Pentagon, Nov. 17, 2010. Giunta is the award's first
living recipient since the Vietnam War. DOD photo by Cherie Cullen |
|
I could fill half the shoes those men left for us, I'll be doing OK for
myself.' And now I'm standing here and I'm filling only half those
shoes. This is just a different time. This is just a different period.” |
|
Giunta also saluted the fallen servicemembers who've
sacrificed all for their country.
“To all the ones that can't be here -- not just one or two,
but all of them -- not just from the 173rd, not just from
Battle Company, but from all services, from the Army, the
Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, the Coast Guard, the
National Guard, the Reserves: Everyone who has ever given so
much more than I ever know, I want to say thank you, right
now, to those men and those women because without them, I'm
nothing,” Giunta said. “I haven't given anything compared to
those who have given everything.”
Giunta said he is honored but also awed by the Medal of
Honor and the induction into the Hall of Heroes with 3,400
other Americans.
“I feel the pressure on my shoulders of all these great
people who gave everything and they can't be here for the
handshake and they can't be here for the congratulations,”
he said. “But I want to say congratulations, in a public
forum among my friends, among my peers, among my seniors.
Thank you.”
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said Giunta's
squad members can attest to his quick actions in Afghanistan
when he saved two fellow soldiers that night as insurgents
closed in.
“From the day he joined our Army, seven years ago, Staff
Sgt. Sal Giunta's leadership skills were readily apparent,”
Casey said. ”He made sergeant in four years and was a
veteran of two tours in Afghanistan by the time he was 22
years old. He is the embodiment of our warrior ethos, ‘I
will always put the mission first, I will never accept
defeat, I will never quit, and I will never leave a fallen
comrade.'”
Casualties in the Medal of Honor recipient's unit “would
have been far greater if not for Sal Giunta's gallantry,
quick action and sacrifice,” Army Secretary John M. McHugh
said at the induction ceremony. “He may credit his training,
he may credit his confidence in those around him, but even
those who were with him that day recognize the special
qualities that we know make him an American hero.”
McHugh recounted what one of Giunta's fellow soldiers said
about him: “‘He'll say he was just doing his job, but the
reality is there are very few people in the world who would
do what he did that night.'” | |
By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2010
Comment on this article |
|
