Today is officially Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta Day in Iowa. Last week President Barack Obama made Giunta the first living soldier since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor. In Iowa today,
A public ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. in the rotunda of the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines. Iowans can meet Giunta in a receiving line that will go through Gov. Chet Culver’s formal office immediately after ceremony.
Then at 5 p.m., there will be a “Welcome Home Parade” in Giunta’s hometown of Hiawatha.
The parade will stage in the Go Daddy parking lot on Robins Road, travel west on Emmons Street, then north on 15th Avenue, then east on Litchfield Drive, then south on 12th Avenue, then east on Lyndhurst Drive, then cross 10th Avenue and end at Guthridge Park, according to Iowa National Guard officials.
Iowans understandably want to honor Giunta for his amazing courage in a crisis. After reading and listening to him describe the 2007 incident in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, though, I wonder whether a parade is a respectful way to welcome this hero home.
Accounts of how Giunta earned our country’s highest military honor are here and here. From the official Medal of Honor citation:
While conducting a patrol as team leader with Company B, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry Regiment, Specialist Giunta and his team were navigating through harsh terrain when they were ambushed by a well-armed and well-coordinated insurgent force. While under heavy enemy fire, Specialist Giunta immediately sprinted towards cover and engaged the enemy. Seeing that his squad leader had fallen and believing that he had been injured, Specialist Giunta exposed himself to withering enemy fire and raced towards his squad leader, helped him to cover, and administered medical aid. While administering first aid, enemy fire struck Specialist Giunta’s body armor and his secondary weapon. Without regard to the ongoing fire, Specialist Giunta engaged the enemy before prepping and throwing grenades, using the explosions for cover in order to conceal his position. Attempting to reach additional wounded fellow soldiers who were separated from the squad, Specialist Giunta and his team encountered a barrage of enemy fire that forced them to the ground. The team continued forward and upon reaching the wounded soldiers, Specialist Giunta realized that another soldier was still separated from the element. Specialist Giunta then advanced forward on his own initiative. As he crested the top of a hill, he observed two insurgents carrying away an American soldier. He immediately engaged the enemy, killing one and wounding the other. Upon reaching the wounded soldier, he began to provide medical aid, as his squad caught up and provided security. Specialist Giunta’s unwavering courage, selflessness, and decisive leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon’s ability to defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow American soldier from the enemy.
Not only did Giunta help his squad leader Erick Gallardo and stop Afghans from carrying Sergeant Joshua Brennan away, he probably saved several other lives by realizing quickly that the assault on his group was an L-shaped ambush. Giunta was promoted to staff sergeant in 2009 and is now stationed at a base near Vicenza, Italy. He described the events for which he’s been honored in this 30-minute official U.S. Army video.
Vicenza paratrooper to be awarded Medal of Honor from US Army Africa on Vimeo.
Around the 22-minute mark of that video, Giunta downplays his part in what happened at the ambush (my transcript):
I only did the next thing that needed to be done, and I was only able to do it because the men around me had the rest of it taken care of. It’s hard to take credit for simply the next step when so many steps had already been taken by everyone else. I didn’t do–in the process of this L-shaped ambush, there was probably a million and one things that needed to be done. And everyone was taking it a step at a time in their own lane in their own piece, fitting in their pieces of the puzzle. My puzzle by no means was the biggest piece, my part of the puzzle wasn’t the best piece, mine wasn’t the hardest piece to put in, and it wasn’t the easiest piece to put in. It was just another piece of the puzzle that put together this whole picture […].
What’s cool is I’m still here. That’s freaking lucky. I’m not superhuman, I didn’t dodge ’em […] I was lucky, not heroic. I was lucky. […] It makes it sound like I ran through bullets to save my buddy. No. […] When I read [about] it, it sounds like I went out of my way to do something special. I didn’t do anything special. I didn’t go out of my way. I just, that was the next step.
Giunta’s mixed feelings about receiving this honor come through every time he speaks to the media. From his interview with Vanity Fair’s Tim Hetherington:
When did you first hear that you were going to be up for a Medal of Honor? It was some time after you returned from the Korengal, wasn’t it?
It was a couple of days later that I heard. Sergeant Gallardo went down for a meeting and came back up and told me. That’s when I found out.
What went through your head when you heard about it?
“Fuck you,” I said. It sounds really awesome in theory, but what’s it worth? Brennan? Mendoza? No. I did what I did because in the scheme of painting the picture of that ambush, that was just my brush stroke. That’s not above and beyond. I didn’t take the biggest brush stroke, and it wasn’t the most important brush stroke. Hearing the Medal of Honor is like a slap in the face. I don’t think you know what I did. I didn’t do shit. […]
By your own definition, it’s brave, what you did out there.
I was one person being brave in a group of a whole bunch of people that were being just as brave. Everything had the same thing to lose: their friends and themselves. I guarantee, no one thought about that out there. Bravery gets thrown around a lot. I served in Battle Company Second of the 503rd with the bravest men I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I’m proud to say that.
What does the Medal symbolize for you?
I want to stress the fact that this is the nation’s highest honor. Awesome. And it’s given to me, but just as much as me, every single person that I’ve been with deserves to wear it-they are just as much of me as I am. This isn’t a one-man show. I’m here because someone picked me. I hope that everyone around me can share in whatever pride that comes from it. They deserve that pride. […]
I’m just another American dude. I’m nothing special, trust me.
Does that sound like someone who wants to be the center of attention at a “welcome home parade”? I understand that Iowans want to express their admiration, and I’m sure the parade organizers mean well, but the actions people will be celebrating aren’t happy memories for Giunta. They remind him of buddies who didn’t survive the ambush. Around the 25-minute mark of this video, Giunta says,
Bad-asses get the Medal of Honor. I’m not that bad-ass. Why do they want to give this to me? Because I got two good buddies that I lost that night, and I don’t deserve it. Don’t give me the highest medal. I don’t need a medal. I didn’t do anything for a medal.
The day President Obama awarded the medal at the White House, Giunta said, “I lost two good friends of mine… and although this is so positive, I would give this back in a second to have my friends with me right now.”
Take a few minutes to read about those friends, Sargeant Joshua Brennan and Specialist Hugo Mendoza. Brennan had been wounded in Afghanistan before and had received honors including the bronze star of valor. Mendoza was the unit’s medic, fatally shot when he “stood up and threw hand grenades at the Taliban to keep them from taking Josh.” I hope some of the Iowans who greet Giunta will acknowledge his friends’ sacrifices and let him know that they realize his friends are missed.
I also hope people won’t ask Giunta to tell his story again today. He doesn’t like talking about the ambush and has already had to do so repeatedly during the past week. He should know that people understand recalling the incident is painful for him.
Final note: The 2007 ambush happened during Giunta’s second tour in Afghanistan. He wasn’t planning to go back there but had no choice because of the Army’s stop-loss policy. The Defense Department started phasing out the policy in 2009 and will supposedly stop forcing any Army soldiers to serve beyond their commitment by March 2011. The U.S. pulled out of the Korengal Valley (nicknamed “Valley of Death”) earlier this year.