President Barack Obama awards Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 11, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
This afternoon, former Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha received the Medal of Honor in a ceremony at the White House. He's the fourth living individual to do so.
On Oct. 3, 2009, Romesha was part of a unit attached to Combat Outpost Keating in the northeastern mountains of Afghanistan. In the early morning, while most of the unit was still asleep, they came under attack. Fifty-three Americans found themselves defending a position the Defense Department later called "indefensible" from more than 300 Taliban fighters.
It soon became one of the most intense battles in the war in Afghanistan.
"With gunfire impacting all around him," President Obama said, "Clint raced to one of the barracks and grabbed a machine gun. He took aim at one of the enemy machine teams and took it out. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded, sending shrapnel into his hip, his arm, and his neck. But he kept fighting, disregarding his own wounds, and tending to an injured comrade instead."
