Fourth living veteran of Afghanistan war to receive Medal of Honor

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Fourth living veteran of Afghanistan war to receive Medal of Honor

By Jennifer Hlad Stars and Stripes
Published: January 11, 2013




Clinton Romesha
WASHINGTON — Former Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha will receive the Medal of Honor in February for his actions as a section leader in Afghanistan in 2009, the fourth living veteran of the war in Afghanistan to receive the award.
Romesha was section leader with Bravo Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division at combat outpost Keating in Kamdesh district, Afghanistan, on Oct. 3, 2009, when his unit came under heavy fire.
According to written accounts by military historian Richard S. Lowry, enemy fighters launched an assault against the post, attacking from three sides and coming close to taking the ammunition supply point.
Romesha led a counterattack to reclaim the ammunition bunker, Lowry wrote.
Eight soldiers were killed in the firefight, which Lowry said lasted 12 hours.
Romesha, who enlisted in 1999 and left the Army in 2011, deployed to Afghanistan twice and to Iraq four times. He has several military decorations, including a Bronze Star, three Army Commendation medals and five Army Achievement medals.
The attack on COP Keating remains one of the deadliest attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan and is chronicled in the book “The Outpost,” by Jake Tapper. In it, Tapper writes that Romesha is the son of a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cedarville, Calif.
“His parents had hoped he would follow his father into the church leadership, and Romesha had in fact gone to seminary for four years during high school — from five till seven every morning — but ultimately it just wasn’t for him. He didn’t even go on a mission, a regular rite for young Mormon men. Romesha was better suited to this kind of mission, with guns and joes under his command.”
Romesha lives in Minot, N.D., with his wife and three children.
The announcement of his award came the same day Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with White House and Pentagon officials to discuss the future of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The scarcity of battlefield valor awards has been a sore spot for veterans groups and lawmakers in recent years. Only seven men, including Romesha, have been awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan since 2001, and only four have received the award for valor in Iraq.
Leo Shane contributed to this report.
hladj@stripes.osd.mil
Twitter: @jhlad

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Dakota Meyer

Born: 26 June 1988 in Greensburg, Kentucky
Served: 2006 - 2010
Rank: Sergeant
Unit: Embedded Training Team 2-8
Branch: U.S. Marine Corps

On Thursday, September 15th, President Obama will present Sergeant Dakota Meyer with the military’s most prestigious honor—the Medal of Honor. Sgt. Meyer will be the first living Marine to receive the award in nearly 40 years since Vietnam, and only the tenth out of 2.3 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to receive the award. Amid these wars, Meyer is only one of three living recipients along with Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta and Sergeant First Class Leroy Petry.

Meyer is being recognized for his valorous actions on September 8, 2009, when he was a corporal with Embedded Training Team 2-8. He was part of a unit that was training a company of Afghan soldiers. The team was meeting with some elders in a local village that day when the unexpected happened: they were hit with a well-prepared, L-shaped ambush. Meyer watched from his support position outside of the village as approximately 50 well-armed insurgents peppered his Afghan and American comrades with machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

Meyer had already done a tour as a Scout Sniper in Fallujah with 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines. Rather than stay in Iraq, he had volunteered for the embedded training unit in Afghanistan because he wanted to be where the action was. He proved his mettle that September day in the Kunar province, two years ago, by what came next.

With his unit cut off and taking heavy enemy fire, Meyer and the other service members outside of the village repeatedly called in for air and artillery support, to no effect. Meyer’s request to enter the combat zone and extract his comrades was also denied, but after an hour’s delay he made the decision to go in anyway. With another service member driving, Sgt. Meyer manned the machine gun turret. Their vehicle sustained enemy fire multiple times and had several near misses from rocket-propelled grenades. Meyer directly killed multiple insurgents, and after two trips into the combat zone he had saved the lives of at least twenty Afghan comrades.

Despite his efforts, four members of Meyer’s team remained missing. Meyer made another three trips in the vehicle although he had been wounded by shrapnel. The firefight continued to rage around him. After his fifth trip was unsuccessful, Meyer went on foot to locate his friends. Faithful to the last, he located his missing buddies. They had been killed and were stripped of their gear. Meyer transported the fallen back to base with the help of local Afghans.

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Leroy Arthur Petry

Born: 29 July 1979 in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Served: 1999 - Present
Rank: Sergeant First Class
Unit: 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment
Branch: U.S. Army

As a member of U.S. Special Operations, Petry went out on a dangerous daylight raid in Afghanistan in May 2008. Their target was a high priority Taliban leader. As the bulk of the unit secured the main building, Petry assisted another Ranger in clearing out the courtyard of a secondary building. The two Rangers encountered armed resistance upon entering the courtyard, and Petry was shot in both of his legs. Petry dragged himself and his comrade, who was also wounded, behind cover as he called for backup. As a third Ranger joined them, the enemy began throwing grenades at the Rangers. When one of the grenades landed next to their position, Petry selflessly picked up the grenade and threw it away from his team. He saved the lives of himself and his two fellow soldiers, but his right arm was lost when the grenade exploded prematurely. Undeterred, Petry coolly applied a tourniquet to his arm and continued to fight. The target of the raid was killed by other Rangers as he fled the compound in a vehicle.

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Salvatore A. Giunta

Born: 25 January 1985 in Clinton, Iowa
Served: 2003-2011
Rank: Staff Sergeant
Unit: 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment
Branch: U.S. Army

On November 16, 2010, Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta became the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Giunta was conducting a night patrol in the Korengal Valley when his company was caught in an L-shaped ambush. Within fifteen seconds of sustaining fire from extreme close range, Giunta acted instinctively to consolidate and protect his squad. Without hesitation, he pushed through murderous fire to link up with the men who had been at the front of the patrol. Once on point, Giunta shot two Taliban fighters who were dragging away a mortally wounded comrade, killing one and wounding the other. Giunta’s actions on the night of October 25, 2007 are attributed to saving the patrol from total annihilation. For his part, Giunta downplays his actions, saying that he did only what any other soldier would have done in his place. To learn more about Staff Sergeant Giunta, read his Medal of Honor citation here.

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