Medal of Honor Awarded to Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha

President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to celebrated Army veteran Clinton Romesha on Monday afternoon, making the former active duty staff sergeant just the fourth living person to receive the military’s highest honor for service in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Romesha, 31, fought back tears as Obama presented him with the medal honoring his “conspicuous gallantry” during the Battle of Kamdesh, a day-long firefight at a remote Afghan outpost near the Pakistan border in 2009.

An official citation read at the ceremony described Romesha’s subsequent acts of valor: “Undeterred by his injuries, Staff Sergeant Romesha continued to fight and upon the arrival of another soldier to aid him and the assistant gunner, he again rushed through the exposed avenue to assemble additional soldiers,” the citation says.

“With complete disregard for his own safety, (he) continually exposed himself to heavy enemy fire as he moved confidently about the battlefield engaging and destroying multiple enemy targets.”

Romesha and his team also provided cover so three injured soldiers could make their way to an aid station. They then “pushed forward 100 meters under withering fire to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades,” according to the citation.

Romesha, a father of three and the son of a Vietnam veteran, reportedly never lost his composure during the chaotic attack.

February 12, 2013, 2:13am / 21

Marines and the Medal of Honor, an infographic

Here’s a break down, in the most aesthetically pleasing way possible, of the Marines who have earned the nation’s highest military decoration for valor.

July 12, 2012, 4:25pm / 21

I’d like to introduce you to the badass of July, Sergeant David B. Bleak (27 February 1932–23 March 2006). During the Korean War (1950-53), Bleak served as a medic in the US Army as apart of the 223rd Infantry Regiment of the 40th Infantry Division. On 14 June 1952 he volunteered to be the medic of a dawn recon patrol that had the goal of locating and capturing an enemy for interrogation. It was while making their way up the rough slope of Hill 499 that they found themselves under heavy enemy fire from a combination of automatic and small-arms fire from concealed positions.

As the group’s only medic, he tended to the wounded before rejoining the rest of the men who continued to fight their way up the hill. As the patrol’s only acting medic, Bleak tended to the wounded before rejoining the men who were still fighting their way up the hillside to capture a prisoner.

The details leading up to what happened next aren’t exactly clear but Sergeant Bleak, upon discovering the concealed position of the enemy, ran direction into the trench and proceeded to kill two North Korean fighters with his bare hands—he broke one’s neck and then crushed the other’s windpipe—and then killed a third by plunging his trench knife into the man’s chest. That wasn’t the end of Bleak’s disregard for his own person safety, within seconds of realizing a grenade had rolled into the trench he and another soldier had been fighting in, the medic jumped atop his comrade to protect him from the impact.

During this entire firefight, Bleak had been hit by a bullet in the leg but he’d ignored his wound and instead cared for his injured comrades. Later, while heading back to the UN lines and carrying a several wounded comrade around his shoulders, Bleak was attacked by two Communist soldiers armed with bayonets. Did the Army medic panic? No. Bleak simply grabbed the two men and smacked their skulls together and, as if there had been nothing to worry about, continued on his way carrying his helpless comrade down Hill 499 to safety.

Though it took until October 1953 for his acts to be recognized, Sergeant David Bleak was awarded the Medal of Honor from President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington. After the war, Bleak lived a quiet life in the state of Idaho, passing away in 2006. He is survived by his wife, four children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

June 27, 2012, 1:55pm / 94

MOH recipient: I'm no hero.

In 2009, Dakota Meyer made five death-defying forays into a heavy-fire zone in Afghanistan’s Ganjgal Valley to save American and Afghan troops.

The military says that during six hours of ferocious fighting after an ambush by insurgents on Sept. 8, 2009, Meyer saved 13 Marines and Army soldiers and 23 Afghan soldiers, killed at least eight insurgents and carried from the battle zone the bodies of four fallen comrades — despite being wounded himself.

And he told NBC News he had to disobey orders to do it.

September 15, 2011, 3:09pm / 35

US Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan

A Marine who braved enemy fire alone to retrieve the bodies of his fallen comrades will be awarded the Medal of Honor, Marine Corps Times reports.

Dakota Meyer, who now lives in Austin, Texas, will be the first living Marine to receive the nation’s highest military honor since the Vietnam War. Two living Army soldiers, Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry and Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, have received the medal in the past year.

Meyer will be recognized for his actions on September 8, 2009, in Ganjgal, a remote Afghan village near the border with Pakistan. As his unit of 13 U.S. service members came under attack by a force of 50 heavily-armed insurgents, Meyer, a corporal at the time, repeatedly ran through enemy fire to recover the bodies of fellow American troops.

“Whatever award comes out of it, it’s for those guys (who were killed) not for me,” Meyer said in an interview with Military Times.

“I feel the furthest thing from a hero,” he said. “The way I view it is I let those guys down.”

July 21, 2011, 9:14am / 39