BlackFive

I have a piece that just went up announcing that SSG Sal Giunta of Battle Co. 2nd BN (ABN) 503rd INF will likely be the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since Vietnam. I say likely since the official announcement has not been made, but we have multiple confirmations. We also waited to put this out in order to make sure we wouldn't affect the process in any way. The Washington Post has a piece today that says the decision is still pending and so they didn't publish his name. We heard otherwise and so the decision to publish was made.

This is a tremendous piece of news and truly over due. SSG Giunta is receiving the award for his actions during an ambush where he charged some Taliban who were attempting to drag away a wounded soldier named Josh Brennan. I know his dad Mike who is a police officer in Madison. He attended the screening of Restrepo in Chicago along w/ Matty O and the Tanker Babe. Unfortunately Josh's wounds were too severe and he didn't make it. I have worn his KIA bracelet since Mike gave it to me at a fundraiser for the 173rd's return party from that tour in Afghanistan. The funny thing is Mike remembered me from an anti-war rally in Madison that I crashed several years earlier. He was there doing his cop thing and I was there doing my argue with the protesters thing. He told me at the fundraiser he was amazed that he didn't have to stop me from stomping mudholes in a few of them. I informed him I was a pacifist now and beyond all that violence stuff. Mike's a great guy and we all honor his son's sacrifice.

While there is much to be happy about in the military awarding this and hopefully more of these, I had a beef with the end of the WaPo piece.

The relatively large number of potential Medal of Honor nominations emerging from this remote area of Afghanistan also reflected a war strategy that asked U.S. commanders to do too much with too few resources, military analysts said. Frequently troops were overextended in hostile terrain.

"We should be stationing our troops in places where they won't be earning the Medal of Honor because the population and terrain favor us and we have quick access to air support," said John Nagl, one of the authors of the Army's counterinsurgency doctrine and president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank.

That quote right there reminds me why I just can't stand Obama's home think tank CNAS. What a stunningly dense statement. By his reckoning we should probably deploy most of our forces to Ft. Bragg. There is an air base right next door and the locals are fairly well-disposed to our troops. While we certainly shouldn't callously put our troops in harms way, the idea that we should only deploy them where they are in no danger is ridiculous.

All right, with that out of the way, congratulations SSG Giunta. I know you will say that you didn't do anything your friends wouldn't have and that many did. But you have earned this award and you should wear it proudly in their honor.

Oh and did you notice the announcement of a new Breitbart site called Big Peace launching July 4th? Can you guess who the editor for the knuckle-dragging, pipe-hitter beat is? I hear he is a pacifist.

The boys at You Served radio have Sebastian Junger on at 7 pm eastern and I imagine this might come up.