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The Manchurian Candidate Gives Out a Medal of Honor
John Grant
Sergeant Salvatore Giunta will receive a Congressional Medal of Honor this week for bravery under fire in October 2007. At great risk, he assaulted a hill and rescued a gravely wounded comrade being dragged away by an insurgent. He will be the first living soldier to receive the medal since the war in Vietnam.
The man Giunta rescued did not survive, and the US forces eventually abandoned the Korengal Valley where the fighting took place.
Giunta, 25, saw his actions this way:
“I ran to the front because that is where he (the wounded comrade) was. I didn’t try to be a hero and save anyone.”
As for the ten-year-old war in Afghanistan, he said, “I have sweat more, cried more, bled more in this country than in my own. These people won’t leave this valley. They have been here far before I could fathom an Afghanistan.”
Giunta’s generous modesty and the strong bond he has with his fellow soldiers is the classic stuff of war legend. He’s an archetypal national war hero from the mold of Gary Cooper playing Sergeant York of WWI fame.
Sergeant Giunta deserves to be honored – as do many young soldiers like him whose heroism under fire may go unknown or unrecognized beyond their unit.
Meanwhile, back in “the world,” as the home front was know to soldiers in Vietnam, politics in America continues along the tragic and absurd course it has been on for too long...
For the rest of this article by JOHN GRANT in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new journalist-owned-and-run online alternative newspaper, please go to: ThisCantBeHappening!
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While what Sergeant Giunta did deserves recognition from the population, the one of the US anyway, and can serve as an example for soldiers of other countries, the military and politicians use such opportunities to try to make themselves look good, which is bad. This is a war of aggression and is, therefore, a criminal war. It was never justifiable and never will be.
The risk he took to try to save a fellow soldier and his words are very appreciable, but does he realize that this has always been an unjustifiable war? If he doesn't, then I would not hold it against him, because it'd apparently be only due to ignorance, which, in turn, might only be due to lack of sufficient serious reading, but it'd nonetheless be unfortunate.
I won't hold that as any kind of negative against him and certainly wouldn't support degrading or mocking him for being ignorant of having served a criminal war. But when the US military and, therefore, government honor soldiers, then it's always bad. The US military and government are hellishly criminal and will only seek to profit themselves from good actions that they are not responsible for in any manner whatsoever. Only the soldiers who commit good actions are deserving of recognition for their actions, but the military honoring these soldiers inherently tries to profit by treating the hellbent military as if it ethically deserves to be the party to honor the soldiers' good actions.
The military and political body of the US deserve to be recognized for what they are, which is hellbent criminal.
So what would've made his action more greatly honorable would've been to reject the honor awarded him by the criminal US military and government. A number of US veterans of I believe these wars returned medals they were given and did this to express their objections to these criminal wars of the making of the political and military leadership of the US, and it would be good if he did the same thing. Every soldier given medals for their service in criminal wars should do the same thing.
Nonetheless, his action was/is very appreciable. We can't diminish the honorability of the risk he took, as well as for his modest words about the situation and people in Korengal Valley.
Don't worry about soldiers who committed good actions not receiving recognition though. Much more important is waking them all up to the fact that these are criminal wars, that the US never conducts any other kind of military actions, and to stop these crimes. And of course we need to add that war veterans need to be given the treatment they need; whether it is medical, assistance for higher education, or other needs, the government must properly see to the veterans. If the soldiers were of the National Guard and had businesses that were lost because of being rather criminally required to serve in these criminal wars, unvoluntarily, then the government should help these veterans to get going again with or in their lines of business. And when speaking of veterans' needs, this of course also applies to or for their spouses and children.
As long as veterans continue to be disgustingly mistreated and ignored, no war medals for soldiers who recently committed good actions in war zones will do the US any good at all. The awarding of medals possibly might also cause war supporters to continue to support what are criminal wars.
The wars are criminal and stopping this is topmost priority. And seeing to proper treatment of veterans is also a top priority. Medals are secondary to these two and far greater priorities.
It's a little dizzying because, yes, soldiers who committed good actions, especially when these involved risking their lives, deserves recognition, but doing that is far from being a top priority. Recognize the good actions when knowing about them and if you don't know about them, then don't worry about them; focus on the top priorities.