U.S.

Salvatore Giunta to Get Highest Military Honor

November 16, 2010 / 7:52 AM EST / CBS/AP

President Barack Obama on Tuesday is awarding the nation's highest military honor to an Army staff sergeant who act of bravery in the face of death saved two comrades in Afghanistan.

Salvatore Giunta earned the Medal of Honor for his actions on a remote hilltop in eastern Afghanistan, repeatedly running into enemy fire to save American lives and rescue a fellow soldier from the hands of the Taliban. Giunta is the first living service member from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the honor.

The Army says that on Oct. 25, 2007, Giunta was serving as a rifle team leader in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan when an insurgent ambush split his squad into two groups.

The 25-year-old soldier from Hiawatha, Iowa, was under fire when he pulled a fellow soldier back to cover and rescued another who was being carried away by two insurgents.

CBS' "60 Minutes" offered a detailed account of the ambush and Giunta's heroism. In an interview, Giunta said he's not yet able to reconcile the losses of fellow soldiers with becoming an American hero.

"I'm not at peace with that at all. And coming and talking about it and people wanting to shake my hand because of it, it hurts me because it's not what I want. And to be with so many people doing so much stuff and then to be singled out - and put forward. I mean, everyone did something. Okay, someone wrote about this, and then someone else approved it. And then a story was told and handshakes were made, and then sooner or later, I'm talkin' to the president of the United States. I don't see how that happened," he told CBS News correspondent Lara Logan.

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