Veteran gets Medal of Honor

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Bleeding from both legs and his arm, Ryan Pitts kept firing at about 200 Taliban fighters, even holding onto his grenades an extra moment to ensure the enemy couldn’t heave them back. On Monday, President Barack Obama draped the Medal of Honor around his neck in a somber White House ceremony that also paid tribute to his nine platoon comrades who died that summer day in Afghanistan.

Pitts, a 28-year-old former Army staff sergeant from Nashua, N.H., is the ninth living veteran of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor. Obama praised Pitts for holding the line as his comrades fell in one of the bloodiest battles of the Afghan war.

“It is remarkable that we have young men and women serving in our military who, day in and day out, perform with so much integrity, so much humility and so much courage,” the president said. “Ryan represents the very best of that tradition.”

Pitts’ mission that day in June 2008 was supposed to be his last before returning home from his second tour of Afghanistan. Pitts and his team had been in the country for 14 months, the Army said, battling frequently with enemy forces in northeastern Afghanistan’s mountainous Waygal Valley.

The goal was to move troops and equipment out of Combat Outpost Bella, a remote post roughly 10 miles from the nearest base, to a new site nearby. Accessible only by helicopter for supplies and reinforcements, Outpost Bella was slated to be closed.

At 4 a.m., Pitts was manning his observation post.

A cascade of rocket-fired grenades, gunfire and hand grenades from the enemy fell on the troops, quickly killing two paratroopers. Shrapnel from grenades struck Pitts in both legs and his left arm. Unable to walk, he crawled to a comrade, who put a tourniquet on his leg.

For more than an hour, Pitts fought to protect the remaining troops and defend the post, the Army said. He radioed back that he was alone, his teammates having all relocated or been killed. Enemy forces were so close to Pitts that those listening on the other end of the radio could hear them.

More than an hour after the attack started, Pitts was evacuated, and eventually made a full recovery. The Army said but for his determination to fight while wounded, the enemy would have gained ground and killed more American troops.