Giunta attended
basic training and
infantry school at
Fort Benning,
Georgia. He was deployed to
Afghanistan from March 2005 until March 2006 and again from May 2007 until July 2008. He was promoted to staff sergeant in August 2009. Giunta was last stationed at
Caserma Ederle, the
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team's base near
Vicenza, Italy. He served in the 2nd Battalion,
503rd Infantry Regiment,
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, and worked in a support role for members of his unit then deployed in Afghanistan. In 2007, Giunta was stationed at
Firebase Vegas in the
Korengal Valley—an area about near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border—which the soldiers had nicknamed the Valley of Death. 1st Platoon was tasked with providing protective cover and interdicting enemy forces from a nearby ridge.
Medal of Honor action Shortly after nightfall on October 25, 2007,
rifle team leader Giunta and the rest of the seven troops of 1st Platoon had just finished a day-long overwatch of 2nd and 3rd Platoon in the valley below. Although dark, there was sufficient moonlight that
night vision equipment was not needed. They were returning to Combat Outpost Vimoto and Korengal Outpost. They walked about apart through the thin holly forest, along the
Gatigal Spur of Honcho Hill at about elevation. Within of leaving their position, 10 to 15 insurgents ambushed the main body of the squad from cover and concealment only about away, The ambushing force was armed with
AK-47 assault rifles, 10
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, and 4 belt-fed
PKM machine guns. They fired an unusually high proportion of
tracer rounds. Giunta described it later: Sergeant Joshua Brennan, leader of Alpha Team and one of Giunta's best friends, was
walking point. He was followed by SPC Frank Eckrode, squad leader Erick Gallardo, and then Giunta, who was then a
specialist. PFC Kaleb Casey and Garrett Clary followed Giunta. A 13-man
Headquarters (HQ) unit led by Lt. Brad Winn, including a five-man gun team from weapons squad, along with a nurse who volunteered for the mission, followed immediately behind them. When the Taliban opened fire, Brennan was struck by eight rounds and Eckrode was hit by four rounds. Unable to advance, he fell back to join Giunta's Bravo Team. While backpedaling and firing at the same time, he fell and was in the same moment struck in the helmet by an AK-47 round. The round penetrated his helmet but only grazed his scalp. Giunta recognized that the extremely heavy tracer fire was coming not just from his west but from the north as well, a classic L-shaped ambush that threatened to flank the squad. He recalled from basic training that to survive an ambush like this he had only one choice: advance on the enemy. He ordered Casey and Clary to pull back a few steps to prevent the Taliban from flanking them. The second Afghan dropped Brennan and fled. After reaching Brennan, Giunta pulled him back towards the rest of the squad and cover, comforted him, and examined him for wounds in the dark. Brennan was grievously hurt. Gallardo told Giunta later on, "You don't understand ... but what you did was pretty crazy. We were outnumbered. You stopped the fight. You stopped them from taking a soldier." Eckrode said of Giunta, "For all intents and purposes, with the amount of fire that was going on in the conflict at the time, he shouldn't be alive." "I did what I did because in the scheme of painting the picture of that ambush, that was just my brush stroke. That's not above and beyond. I didn't take the biggest brush stroke, and it wasn't the most important brush stroke. Wearing the Medal of Honor is like a slap in the face." He received the medal from President
Barack Obama during a ceremony at the White House on November 16, 2010. All of his surviving squad members also attended the ceremony. On July 5, 2017, during a dedication ceremony for the Medal of Honor Walkway, located outside of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Headquarters building in Vicenza, Italy, Salvatore Giunta chose to give his Medal of Honor to the brigade. He stated "I want this to stay here in Vicenza, Italy with the 173rd to the men and women that earn this every single day through their selflessness and sacrifice." Addressing the attention he has received due to the medal, he stated: Giunta is the fourth Medal of Honor recipient from the
War in Afghanistan, after U.S. Navy Lieutenant
Michael P. Murphy, U.S. Army Sergeant First Class
Jared C. Monti, and U.S. Army Staff Sergeant
Robert James Miller, the others being posthumously awarded the medal. All four were decorated for actions in eastern Afghanistan's small but highly-lethal
Kunar Province. ==Personal life==