The guy is amazing. Here it is, in case you missed it:
Here’s the president putting the medal around the guy’s neck today.
Something about the very long silence—the lack of language, the flat stare (every time Staff Sgt. Giunta talks about what happened three years ago he starts to tear up), the amount of time it takes Obama to fasten it, the president adjusting the medal after Giunta turns around—kills me.
He features prominently in the war documentary “Restrepo”.
And in Sebastian Junger’s book “War.”
That is very moving.
that’s a manly slap on the back. watched it soundless and could practically hear that manly barking noise tim allen makes.
It almost makes our nations imperialist actions seem respectable.
The guy is obviously a real hero, but the medal of honor to a living person smacks of publicity for a hated war. Also that’s a sick pentagram on the medal.
There is no one named Salvatore in my America
I cry like a little baby even when reading accounts of the events he won this award for. No human beings should be in the position he and the other fighters were in. He and his friends shouldn’t have been there to be killed and kill. War is horrible and stupid. He was fighting for the pleasure of defense contractors and super-rich monsters. It doesn’t change the fact of his basic humanity and that he put himself at grave personal risk to defend people he cared about.
@8 @9
War is intrinsic to the human species. We’ve done it for thousands of years, and we’ll continue to do it for thousands of years. To wish for a humanity without war is to wish for the tide not to come in or the sun not to come up.
One day, when Humanity has been left in the dustbin of Intergalactic history, we will be known not for science, or religion, or art; but for our never ending desire to kill one another.
A friend once told me that humankind are no better than animals. I disagreed: We’re far worse.
@5 FTW
that is one awesome dude. he’ll never have to buy a beer the rest of his life. wtf did i do at 22? Could i have done that?
@10 Sure war has been a feature of human activity for around ten thousand years but we’ve been a species for at least 40,000.
Saying that war is intrinsic to our species is a lazy justification for mass murder. The primary behavior that really separates us from other animals is our concept of right and wrong and our ability to act on it.
War is something that we can stop anytime, unfortunately that doesn’t mean that we will.
@13 You think far too much of our species.
War is just murder wrought on a grand scale. We’ve been killing far longer than we’ve been waging battle. We just managed to get really good at it.
Some day, this planet will burn and take all of us with it. I’m just sorry I wont be around to see it all turn to ash.
They fucking televised the war.
I hate war. I hate this war and all the other wars. I completely disagree with our reasons for being in this war, and I wish we never went, and if we can’t have never went, I wish we were already gone.
But our country is fighting a war, and these dudes are over there doing it, and that one dude did some pretty fuckin’ scary and brave shit to help out his buddy, who was in beyond-grave danger.
So fuck you assholes sitting warm and safe at your computers in Seattle for denigrating this guy and his actions because you disagree with decisions made by people he has never met.
I hate war. I hate this war and all the other wars. I completely disagree with our reasons for being in this war, and I wish we never went, and if we can’t have never went, I wish we were already gone.
But our country is fighting a war, and these dudes are over there doing it, and that one dude did some pretty fuckin’ scary and brave shit to help out his buddy, who was in beyond-grave danger.
So fuck you assholes sitting warm and safe at your computers in Seattle for denigrating this guy and his actions because you disagree with decisions made by people he has never met.
Also, fuck me for the double post.
I shouldn’t have watched this before going to a meeting …
I’m sure he’d give the medal and everything back if just one of his buddies had survived.
This medal is all about *us* feeling better.
He’s got a long recovery from the trauma ahead, and I can’t imagine the hoopla will help him in the end, nor motivate anyone else to heroic acts.