Landstuhl CrossFit

Tan at the Army Times identifies the soldier under consideration for the Medal of Honor as SSG Sal Giunta, and provides further details of justification for the award: Giunta’s heroic actions are chronicled in a new book titled “War,” by Sebastian Junger.
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A specialist at the time, Giunta deployed with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team for its June 2007 to August 2008 tour in Afghanistan. According to Junger’s book, late on Oct. 25, 2007, Giunta and his fellow soldiers from B Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, were on their way back from a major operation when they are ambushed by the enemy.
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Giunta was the fourth soldier from the front; Sgt. Josh Brennan was walking point, according to “War.” The enemy fired machine-gun and small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from such close range that the Apache attack helicopters overhead were unable to help the soldiers on the ground. “First Platoon is essentially inside a shooting gallery,” Junger wrote. “Within seconds, every man in the lead squad takes a bullet. Brennan goes down immediately, wounded in eight places.”
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As the battle progressed, Giunta “sees two enemy fighters dragging Josh Brennan down the hillside. He empties his M4 magazine at them and starts running toward his friend,” according to the book. “Giunta jams a new magazine into his gun and yells for a medic. Brennan is lying badly wounded in the open and Giunta grabs him by the vest and drags him behind a little bit of cover.” Brennan doesn’t survive surgery, Junger wrote.

Multiple news sources quoting “US officials” report that SSG Giunta saved several comrades’ lives that day. Giunta discussed his actions with Junger:

I did what I did because that’s what I was trained to do,” he told Junger. “I didn’t run through fire to save a buddy – I ran through fire to see what was going on with him and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together. I didn’t run through fire to do anything heroic or brave. I did what I believe anyone would have done.

What anyone would have done? I’ve spoken to a lot of Army members who have lived through firefights in Afghanistan and Iraq, and many have tried to explain the phenomena of time slowing down and having more time to think. I can tell you just from educated guess of what my own actions might be in similar circumstances: for every microsecond time should slow down for me while I’m getting shot at, I sincerely believe I would use that time absolutely exclusively to focus on how to make myself the very smallest, fastest & zigzagging, or completely disappearingest target out there. To run out in the middle of a firestorm thinking of anyone other than myself so defies any characterization of reason that I have ever seen defined that I am left with no doubt that Giunta is bravery’s quintessence.
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But then, I think you military folks all are heroes, and that America owes you an enormous debt for your service. So Now Listen: there is a very important circumstance where you absolutely must give her the opportunity to partially pay you back. It’s PTSD.
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In the recent Navy Times story that I linked above, Robert Foley, a retired lieutenant general and Medal of Honor recipient who is now the director of Army Emergency Relief, is quoted as saying that as a rifle company commander in Vietnam he found

soldiers care deeply for their fellow soldiers and would do anything to prevent them from being killed or wounded. And the same needs to be true in peace time. If you return from combat and have concerns about your [or others'] mental health, ask for help.

Reach out and touch soldiers you believe may be struggling – whether deployed or at home. It’s not just suicide threats, either – these are soldiers with marriages on the line, family relationships in strife, even job performance suffering. Someone you know is a bigger a*hole than they were prior to deployment, instead of distancing yourself from them just like everyone else is doing, ask them what the heck (maybe what the f**k) is going on, and do it in a caring fashion. It’s not about weakness – witnessing this stuff, living through these conditions causes significant, measurable biochemical and even physical damage to your brain and will at minimum tarnish your perception of events for the rest of your life. You are having a perfectly natural, justifiable reaction to stuff that’s bigger than anyone can handle on their own. Buggered you can’t control it on your own? You’re not mentally unstable – YOU ARE HUMAN.
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The first step in seeking help may take all the courage you can muster. Take heart from the literal flood of people who have preceded you – over 300,000 just from Afghanistan and Iraq according to this Army Times report which covers a 4-star general still struggling with PTSD. Landstuhl has an amazing 8-week PTSD program (nevermind the security warning – the webmaster must be an idiot), but short of that seek help from your chain of command, professionals in the psychology department, your chaplain – someone you trust. There’s no shame – you’re heroes – and I don’t care if the most dangerous object you handled on a daily basis while deployed was a No.2 pencil. The separation, the isolation, the confinement, the environment, the monotony, daily news of the fallen – it’s a combination of stressers that gradually invades your psyche, and insidiously wrecks your sanity. America owes you at the very least this treatment.