Posted on 07/21/2014 2:39:20 PM PDT by Kartographer
Bleeding from both legs and his arm, Ryan Pitts kept firing at about 200 Taliban fighters, even holding onto his grenades an extra moment to ensure the enemy couldn't heave them back. On Monday, President Barack Obama draped the Medal of Honor around his neck, in a White House ceremony that also paid tribute to his nine platoon comrades who died that summer day in Afghanistan.
Pitts, a 28-year-old former Army staff sergeant from Nashua, New Hampshire, is the ninth living veteran of America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the nation's highest decoration for battlefield valor. In a somber White House ceremony, Obama praised Pitts for holding the line as his comrades fell in one of the bloodiest battles of the Afghan war.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The U.S. Army will induct former Staff Sgt. Ryan Pitts into the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes in a July 22, 2014, ceremony. The Pentagon ceremony will add Pitts’ name to the distinguished roster in the Hall of Heroes, the Defense Department’s permanent display of record for all recipients of the Medal of Honor.
http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/pitts/profile/index.html
Pitts stood stoically and humbly in the East Room of the White House, silent as Obama recalled his valor at a ceremony attended by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and New Hampshire’s two senators. But in brief remarks later outside the West Wing, Pitts read the names of his fallen comrades, one by one, an uneasy silence hanging in the air in between each name.
“Valor was everywhere that day, and the real heroes are the nine men who made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could return home,” Pitts said. “It is their names — not mine — that I want people to know.”
Awesome. We need good stories like this sometimes.
He fits my definition of a true hero!
Personally, if it was me, I would refuse and demand to receive it from President G.W. Bush............
SGT Pitts will no doubt wash the Medal of Honor and sanitize it after it was handled by Traitorobama. (Who knows what Pervertobama did with the Medal of Honor before the presentation ceremonies.)
Obama doesn’t give a damn about our military personnel, including those who receive the MOH. It is just a crocodile tear moment/photo-op for the Traitor in Chief.
If he really cared, he would have dropped the crippling Rules of Engagement his emasculated general promulgated in Afghanistan, which resulted in many Americans and Afghani troops being killed.
If Obama gave a damn, he would have authorized the use of all means of fire support for our men under fire, including bringing back Napalm, the most perfect weapon for destroying enemy ambushes in mountains/valleys.
Obama lies and American die!
Obama had nothing to do with the MOH and the person who earned it. This isn’t about Obama, but the recipient.
He said that the award also belonged to Sergio Abad, Jonathan Ayers, Jason Bogar, Jonathan Brostrom, Israel Garcia, Jason Hovater, Matthew Phillips, Pruitt Rainey and Gunnar Zwilling.
‘While it is an honor to have been nominated for the award, it is not mine alone,’ he said. ‘The honor belongs to every man who fought at Vehicle Patrol Base Kahler, especially to those who made the ultimate sacrifice that allowed the rest of us to return home....
.....’I have an absolute responsibility to tell our story, because there are nine men who cannot and it is their names you should know.’
Pitts recalled the moment Garcia died.
‘There wasn’t really anything we could do for him other than for me to give him the guarantee that I would come home and tell his wife and mother that he loved them and that he was thinking of them in his last moments,’ he said.
Pitts kept his word.
He said he initially wasn’t happy to learn that his actions were being reviewed.
‘I never felt that I deserved it but since then, I’ve accepted the fact that this isn’t mine,’ he said. ‘It belongs to everybody who was there that day because we did it together.’
He maintains that while he hasn’t changed because of the medal, his outlook is renewed.
‘I know now that I’m going to live my life for those who aren’t here because I owe it to them,’ he said.
Pitts, who has fully recuperated from his injuries and is in business development at a software firm, was accompanied Thursday by his wife, Amy.
His face brightened when asked about life since the battle, clearly happy about his upcoming second wedding anniversary and their one-year-old son, Lucas.
When he someday tells the boy about what happened in Afghanistan, he said, ‘I don’t want to tell him about my experiences. I want to tell him about the other guys.’
He added: ‘I want him to know he’s here because of their actions. It’s the only reason he’s here because a lot of those guys saved my life.’
There are pictures at the link.
Matthew Phillips’ wife was one of my son’s teachers in high school, a favorite. This was the summer between his Jr and Sr years.
The emotion is flooding back & am surprised at how raw it still feels. It’s as if I just came back from calling hours.
At graduation the following May, one of the ROTC instructors gave tribute to The Army Wife. The standing ovation given Matthew Phillips’ widow is beyond description, except to say there was not a dry eye in the auditorium.
A first hand account of the battle:
http://www.stripes.com/news/soldiers-recount-deadly-attack-on-afghanistan-outpost-1.81141
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