Now part of the North Texas community, Sal Giunta regularly helps bring Recipient stories to life at the National Medal of Honor Museum. Follow the Museum on social media for future opportunities to meet Sal Giunta at a fireside chat, book signing, or special event.

At the National Medal of Honor Museum, we often describe Recipients as “ordinary Americans” because every extraordinary action has a human beginning, one we all can relate to. 

Salvatore “Sal” Giunta has always been candid about his. When introduced onstage as a Medal of Honor Recipient, he is quick to add another title: former Sandwich Artist at Subway.

Before the Army, Afghanistan, and a White House ceremony, Giunta was an Iowa teenager trying to decide what came next.

Then he heard an Army radio advertisement with a compelling offer.

It Started with a Free T-Shirt

After working at Krispy Kreme, Giunta took a job at a Subway restaurant in Cedar Rapids. The change helped him improve his eating habits and rediscover his interest in working out. More importantly, it put him within earshot of an Army radio advertisement promising a free T-shirt to anyone who stopped by the local recruiting office. 

“I went in the very next day,” Giunta wrote in his 2012 memoir, Living with Honor, written with Joe Layden. “Not so much because I had any burning desire to join the Army, but because I thought it would be neat to have an Army T-shirt.”

The recruiter told Giunta that the country was at war and that the military offered a chance to prove himself and make a difference. Giunta thanked him, took the shirt, and left.

But the recruiter’s words stayed with him.

At the tender age of 18, Giunta saw few opportunities to make an immediate impact on something important. The Army offered a steady paycheck, adventure, and considerably more action than his current role behind the counter.

Within days, he returned and enlisted.

Becoming a Sky Soldier: “Sweat and patience and performance”

Giunta grew up in Cedar Rapids and Hiawatha, Iowa, in a family with roots in Sicily. When he learned he would be stationed in Italy, he could hardly believe his good fortune—even if, by his own account, his knowledge of the country extended little beyond The Godfather and the Olive Garden.

More important than the destination was the unit waiting for him there: Battle Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade.

“The 173rd wasn’t just any Army unit; it was the Army unit,” Giunta wrote. 

That reputation had been earned across generations. The 173rd traced its roots to World War I and established a formidable record in Vietnam, where its “Sky Soldiers” received 13 Medals of Honor and more than 6,000 Purple Hearts. After decades of deactivation, the brigade was reactivated in 2000. By the time Giunta arrived in 2004, its soldiers had deployed to Kosovo, and nearly 1,000 of its paratroopers had made a combat jump into northern Iraq.

Giunta quickly learned that receiving the unit patch was not the same as earning a place within the group.

“You have to earn the privilege with sweat and patience and performance,” he wrote. “It’s discussed during training. And it’s shared through something akin to osmosis, by merely hanging around the men who have returned. It's also conveyed in a more primal way: through push-ups and sit-ups.”

Thousands of them.

The Army also introduced Giunta to what he called “a world with an unyielding moral compass—a world where breaking the law results in the law breaking you right back.” 

Responsibility became real. Authority mattered. Actions had consequences.

Giunta does not portray his younger self as especially disciplined or destined for distinction. His memoir is candid about his immaturity, misjudgments, and occasional recklessness. And yet, he found his footing in Army boots, alongside leaders and fellow soldiers who expected him to meet a higher standard.

The Cost of a Life

Giunta arrived in Afghanistan’s Zabul Province in March 2005 eager to put his training to use. At 20, he saw the deployment as a chance to do something tangible for his country.

War quickly replaced anticipation with experience. Giunta was shot in the leg during a firefight. That August, an improvised explosive device struck a Battle Company vehicle, killing four soldiers and seriously wounding another.

Giunta later said he became a man during that first deployment. The sense of invulnerability he had carried into Afghanistan was gone. He understood how quickly a person could be there—and then simply not be.

“We are taught in our culture to believe that life is precious, that it is priceless,” he wrote. War offered a brutal contradiction: “Life is the cost of one bullet. Life is the cost of one roadside bomb.”

Giunta returned to Italy in March 2006 expecting his original enlistment to end the following year. Instead, the Army extended his service under its stop-loss policy.

In May 2007, he deployed again with the 173rd—this time to the Korengal Valley.

Training, Instinct, and the Guy Beside You

Giunta’s second deployment took him to the Korengal Valley, a narrow, mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan. Enemy attacks were frequent, and soldiers operated from isolated outposts far from larger bases.

By October, Giunta was a specialist serving as a rifle team leader. On the night of October 25, 2007, members of his platoon were moving along the Gatigal Spur during Operation Rock Avalanche when enemy fighters opened fire at close range from an L-shaped ambush.

“From day one in basic training, it’s a battle drill,” Giunta recalled in a Congressional Medal of Honor Society Living History interview. “What do you do when a near-ambush happens? You charge the line. You’re going to win or lose on that, but you’re going to win or lose staying where you’re at—and if you stay where you’re at, you’re probably going to lose. So we threw grenades, and we ran forward.” 

Machine gun fire, rifle fire, and rocket-propelled grenades divided the soldiers into separate groups. Giunta moved to cover and returned fire. When he saw that his squad leader, Staff Sergeant Erick Gallardo, had fallen, Giunta ran through enemy fire, pulled him to cover, and began providing medical aid. Bullets struck Giunta’s body armor and the weapon slung across his back.

Giunta continued forward, throwing grenades and firing his rifle as he tried to reach other members of the squad. Then he saw two enemy fighters carrying away a badly wounded American soldier.

It was Sergeant Joshua Brennan, Giunta’s friend and fellow Sky Soldier.

“I had been with Brennan for maybe four years,” Giunta recounted in an interview. “He’s smarter than me, stronger than me, smaller than me, too—but he’s faster than me and a better shot than me. And that was who was getting carried away.”

Giunta immediately opened fire. One fighter was killed; the other was wounded and fled. Giunta reached Brennan, pulled him into cover, and began treating his wounds while the rest of the squad caught up and secured the area.

Brennan was evacuated but later died from his wounds. Specialist Hugo Mendoza, the platoon medic, was also killed in the ambush. Several other soldiers were wounded.

The official Medal of Honor citation records that Giunta’s actions helped the platoon defeat the ambush and prevented Brennan from being taken.

The First Living Recipient of the Global War on Terrorism

Giunta has never described the outcome of the ambush as his alone. He could move forward because other soldiers returned fire, provided cover, treated the wounded, and did their part. He has said that, had their roles been reversed, any one of them would have done what he did.

“No one’s concerned about themselves in that situation,” he explained in an Iowa Public Radio interview. “Everyone’s concerned about the person to their left and the person to their right.”

The nation’s attention ultimately settled on one soldier. Giunta remembered an entire formation.

His discomfort with that individual recognition carried an additional weight. Before Giunta, seven servicemembers had been recognized with the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan—all awarded posthumously.

When Giunta learned that he had been recommended for the Medal, he initially reacted with anger. Brennan and Mendoza had died that night; he saw nothing to celebrate.

On November 16, 2010, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Honor to 25-year-old Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta at the White House—the first living Recipient since the Vietnam War.

The Weight of a Light Silk Ribbon

Giunta’s family attended the ceremony, along with soldiers who had been on the mountainside, the families of those who had not returned, and eight Medal of Honor Recipients from previous conflicts.

“As I felt the light silk ribbon go around my neck, I felt the weight of the sacrifices of those two men, and the sacrifices of several people in that audience,” he recalled.

In conversations with Recipients at the National Medal of Honor Museum, many have said the Medal of Honor is harder to wear than to earn. Giunta is no different, carrying both its national significance and the weight of the soldiers and families it represents.

“The award is symbolic of something greater than any individual soldier,” Giunta wrote. “It is symbolic of pride and honor and patriotism. I get that. But to me, it’s something much smaller and something much more personal.”

The Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Giunta left the Army in 2011 after seven years of service. He has said that he grew up between the ages of 18 and 26—the years he spent in uniform. Demanding standards, exceptional leaders, and the soldiers beside him helped transform an impatient Iowa teenager into a trusted team leader.

His journey captures what the National Medal of Honor Museum means when we describe Recipients as ordinary Americans. Recipients were not born as names in history books. They began with families, flaws, unfinished plans, and everyday jobs. They learned, helped, and were shaped by the people around them. 

The Sandwich Artist and the Sky Soldier are not competing versions of Sal Giunta. They are the same person: a teenager drawn into a recruiting office by a free T-shirt who found purpose, responsibility, and belonging in the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

His story reminds us that we are defined by more than where we grew up, the families that shaped us, or what we imagined we might become. We are also defined by how we look out for the people to our right and left—and what we choose to do when they need us.