War Hero, Salvatore Giunta

The New York Times has done the unexpected: reported on a war hero ("Iowa Man to Receive First Non-Posthumous Medal of Honor Since Vietnam," Tom Shanker, Sept. 10, 2010).

In the most dangerous valley of the most rugged corner of eastern Afghanistan, a small rifle team of airborne soldiers fell into an insurgent ambush, a coordinated attack from three sides.

A young Army specialist, Salvatore A. Giunta, took a bullet to the chest, but was saved by the heavy plates of his body armor. Shaking off the punch from the round, he jumped up and pulled two wounded soldiers to safety, grabbed hand grenades and ran up the trail to where his squad mates had been patrolling.

There, he saw a chilling image: Two fighters hauling one of his American comrades into the forest. Specialist Giunta hurled his grenades and emptied the clip in his automatic rifle, forcing the enemy to drop the wounded soldier. Still taking fire, he provided cover and comfort to his mortally wounded teammate until help arrived.

Sergeant Giunta has a humble hero's perspective of the matter.

“I entered the Army when I was 18, and I’m 25 now. I became a man in the Army,” he said. “That night I learned a lot — and after that night I learned even more. This respect that people are giving to me? This was one moment. In my battalion, I am mediocre at best. This shows how great the rest of them are.” 

He is from Hiawatha, Iowa. He is married and presently stationed in Italy.

Patriotism and Sports Pride

It was a strange providence that the Lord timed my oath of citizenship to coincide with the Vancouver Winter Olympics and, at the end of that, the great hockey showdown between my new country and the old country. It stirred up some surprising sentiments.

What was also suprising was that my Yankee wife "supported" the Canadian team for the gold medal, even though she is fiercely patriotic. She caught some jesting grief for this from a friend or two. The next day, a student confronted me over where my heart lay in the contest with Canada, making it clear to me before I answered that this was the litmus test for the sincerity of my solemn affirmations at the naturalization ceremony. So the two of us gave some thought to the relationship between patriotism and internation sports competition.

Here is part of my WORLDmag.com essay that came of it:

I have suffered a few aspersions because, though I am now an American citizen, I nonetheless felt an affinity for the Canadian Olympic hockey team, and even thought it was right that they should win the gold medal. Someone went so far as to suggest that the direction of my allegiance in this contest was the test of my fidelity to the oath of citizenship I took. But patriotism, the healthy love of one’s country, has nothing to do with international sports.

...[I]f a patriot is one who loves his country and seeks what is best for her, then he may withhold his cheers for an unworthy national team, and even direct his cheers elsewhere if he thinks his country’s victory in that case would be bad for the national character. So why turn against the U.S. hockey team?

...An Olympic gold for the United States in hockey would have encouraged a belief in manifest destiny that does not bring out the best in this exceptional people to whom, on firmly held principle, I have chosen to join myself.

Read the whole provocative thing: "Patriotism is not Boosterism."

Honor to Whom Honor is Due

Noel Rabinowitz writes: Ret. Col. Robert L. Howard was buried last Wednesday. ("One of Nation's Most Highly Decorated Soldiers Laid to Rest," Fox News, Feb. 24, 2010)

Robert L. Howard was a Medal of Honor recipient, and was awarded the Purple Heart eight times. He was wounded 14 times in combat in the span of 54 months. He served five tours of duty in Vietnam.

I regret that I didn’t know who Robert L. Howard was.  More importantly,  I regret that my mind is clogged with names of people like Shawn Penn, Oprah Winfrey, Al Franken, and other stupid people.

Dr. Noel Rabinowitz is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at The King's College in New York City and is a guest writer today at Principalites and Powers. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1978-1985.

Innes adds: This is a man to celebrate. It is a telling indication of who we have become that this man is widely uncelebrated. Abbie Hoffman we know. Robert L. Howard is unsung. We ignore our heroes, and yet we still produce them. It's a great country, but we take alot for granted.

Love of Country and Defending Liberty

Okay. The holidays are over. No more fun.

This guy is the stuff of which victorious fighting forces are made. He is a Navy SEAL, wounded in Iraq and eager to return to duty. This comes from "Backfive," an interesting outfit.



My question for you is this. What kind of society produces this kind of man? (Just an aside: the placard doesn't explicitly say, but this is clearly a man. No woman would say these things. SEALS are necessarily men.) What are we preserving in our society that encourages this sort of courage, self-discipline, love of country, and self-denial? Or are we only spreading the sort of soil that produces people who stampede over Wal-Mart employees, killing them in our attempts to be first at the deeply discounted flat screen televisions?

In a chaotic world, liberty demands that some brave, patriotic souls sacrifice themselves for others. Men like that do not spring from nothing. Notice that this patriot does what he does because his heart has been formed in a certain way. He has particular "loves." He loves his job. Fine. Soldiers love to fight. Be he goes on. "The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love." It's not Iraq that he loves. He loves the United States of America. Of course, he loves his family ("people I love"), but he also loves his country, not just because it is his but because it is a land of liberty. It is a country uniquely committed to the self-evident truths "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, [and] that among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." No doubt he has a sober appreciation for this land. Surely he loves America "on balance," despite her vices and shortcomings. After all, he grew up here and, when he's not fighting, he lives here. But mature love is like that.

The question for us as the citizens whose liberty he is defending is this. How long can a country remain free when, from the public schools to our elite universities and from the movies to the news media, we are despising our country, its moral foundations, its most noble founders, and its greatest accomplishments? What happens to a country that no longer believes in itself?

This question becomes practical when citizens are called upon to elect school boards and Presidents. As for the current President-elect, let's hope that what he learned in church didn't stick with him, or that his religion doesn't affect the way he governs, or that he doesn't actually hate his country the way his wife Michelle does.

Love of One's Own

Do you love this country for what it is now, or only for what it might become? The Left, made up as it is of malcontents of various sorts and tenors, has never been satisfied with the basic condition or direction of this country. America is only ever great in prospect; there is never any reason to celebrate or feel good about where we are in any given historical instant--it's always bad, with never enough of what is good. The capacity of open societies for self-criticism and evaluation they have made into a form of national self-hatred and abasement, scolding us for what we are not, and, through the vision they provide for the glorious future they will lead us into, tell us all we need to know about what they really think of America as it is. Roger Kimball is one who believes there is a deep reservoir of affection for this country among its real inhabitants--that is, those of us actually living in the present with our feet on the ground, as opposed to those whose only point of contact with America is as a politicized abstraction, a vehicle for projecting their utopian fantasies, which are usually merely the indulgence of self righteousness. Away with these prigs!

Kimball's edifying piece is here. Read it, and buck up.