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A look at heroes from a post-9/11 era of war
By Daniel Arkin, Staff Writer, NBC News
President Obama will award the Medal of Honor to a celebrated Army veteran on Monday.
Clinton Romesha, 31, a former active duty Army staff sergeant, is being honored for his "conspicuous gallantry" during the Battle of Kamdesh, a day-long firefight in Afghanistan in 2009. He is just the fourth living individual to receive the military's highest honor for service in Iraq or Afghanistan, the White House said.
Romesha is being recognized for leading the charge against hundreds of Taliban fighters during an Oct. 3, 2009 siege on 50 U.S. troops at an outpost near the Pakistan border.
Eight American soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded in the attack at Combat Outpost Keating, making it the deadliest day for the U.S. in the war effort that year.
The former Army staff sergeant, who also served twice in Iraq, spearheaded efforts to retake the camp, frequently risking his own life as U.S. troops were besieged by rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, mortars and rifles.
"With complete disregard for his own safety, [he] continually exposed himself to heavy enemy fire as he moved confidently about the battlefield engaging and destroying multiple enemy targets," Romesha's citation says.
Romesha, a father of three and the son of a Vietnam veteran, reportedly never lost his composure during the chaotic attack, according to CNN journalist Jake Tapper, who chronicled the battle in the 2012 book "The Outpost."
Previously reported: "He's always been a good kid."?
"I've had buddies that have lost eyesight and lost limbs," Romesha said in a January news conference, shortly after Obama called to inform him that he would receive the honor. "I would rather give them all the credit they deserve for sacrificing so much. For me it was nothing, really. I got a little peppered, that was it."
Romesha and his family will join the president at the White House at 1:30 p.m. ET Monday for a formal ceremony.?He is slated to be a guest of first lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address on Tuesday,?CNN reported.?
Romesha lives in Minot, N.D., with his wife and three children and works at KS Industries, an oil field construction firm.
A total of ten U.S. service members have been awarded the military's highest honor for actions in?Afghanistan?and Iraq, including six men who received the honor posthumously.?
The Medal of Honor is bestowed on members of the U.S. Armed Forces who display what the Army calls "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty."
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