[RN47]

Former SSG Ryan Pitts will receive the Medal of Honor for actions on 13 July 2008 during a battle on OP Topside/VPB Kahler in Wanat, Afghanistan. He is the third member of 2nd Battalion 503rd Infantry (Airborne) to receive the award.

Former Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta was the first living service member to be honored for his actions in these wars, and former Sgt. Kyle White was honored in May. All three men deployed together in the same battalion in May 2007 for a 15-month deployment to some of the toughest parts of eastern Afghanistan. Pitts who was medically discharged from the Army in 2009, refused any credit for his actions.

He views the MoH as a memorial to the nine soldiers who gave their lives in Wanat.

“I feel a responsibility to tell our story, because there are nine guys that can’t,” he said.