Sgt. Giunta will be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Obama. He will be the first living recipient for service in Afghanistan. Similarly, there have been no living recipients for service in Iraq.
An excerpt from the Post's article:
About a dozen Taliban fighters had concealed themselves along the ridge, waiting patiently for the Americans to come down the trail.
As gunfire and grenades erupted, the paratrooper's medic, Spec. Hugo Mendoza, was hit in the leg and bled to death. A round struck Staff Sgt. Erick Gallardo in the helmet, knocking him down.
Giunta was also knocked flat and rolled into a washed-out rut for cover. But then he saw Gallardo ahead of him on the trail and lunged forward, dodging enemy fire to reach the staff sergeant, who survived.
Further ahead on the trail was Army Spec. Franklin Eckrode, seriously wounded and stuck with a jammed machine gun. Giunta and two other paratroopers jumped up and rushed to his aid, headlong into the Taliban ambush, returning fire and tossing grenades as they ran.
As the two paratroopers reached Eckrode and stopped to help, Giunta kept going. Over the ridgeline, he saw two Taliban fighters dragging away Sgt. Joshua Brennan, who had taken the brunt of the fire as the lead paratrooper on the trail. Brennan had been shot in the jaw, the back and several other places. Although badly wounded, the Taliban wanted to take him hostage.
Giunta, tossing his last grenade and emptying his magazine, killed one of the Taliban and chased off the other. He tried to keep Brennan alive until a medevac helicopter could get there.
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