Medal of Honor recipient remembered as a selfless friend

Just Minutes ago Sgt Jared Monti has just been honored with the vaunted Medal of Honor, a tribute less than 3500 of tens of millions of brave fighting men and women have ever been bestowed in our nations history.

He is and was a Great American by all measures.

Here below is this man's one in a million story from CNN, explaining why it is he who was awarded this medal of dreams for a military man or woman this afternoon by Barack Hussein Obama at 1300 eastern time after being killed on his second tour of duty through Afghanistan by enemy fire making repeated attempts to save his men....

Repeated attempts to save
Pvt. Brian Bradbury cost Monti his life.

We here are proud of him and his service to our country, and salute him with all our heart along with our thanks for what he does, and for being a real American hero day in and day out protecting this country and our freedoms both near and far.

God bless people like Jared Monti exist, or this country as we now know it wouldn't, that's for damn sure. On this week that Sgt Monti would have celebrated his 34th birthday, may he and all his beloved fallen comrades rest in peace for their greatest of sacrifices for we and our liberty

CNN.com"RAYNHAM, Massachusetts (CNN) -- It's a crisp New England day and Paul Monti is sitting in the backyard garden he built to honor the memory of his son, sipping coffee from his favorite Boston Red Sox mug, and nursing what he calls a 'morning cigar.'"

These are daily rituals that help him deal with his son's death three years ago, while serving the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.

"I come out here and sit on the bench and sit in the flowers," says Monti, a retired schoolteacher. "This is where I get my solitude."

There was the time that Jared was in high school and came home, to this house with the American flags flying on the porch, and asked his dad if he could cut down one of the spruce trees in the front yard. A single mom down the street in this tiny town outside Boston couldn't afford a Christmas tree, and Jared wanted to take care of her family for the holidays. Video Watch more on the life and death of Sgt. Jared Monti

Or the time that Jared was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and chipped in with a roommate on a $500 dining set for their apartment off base. One day the roommate came home and was infuriated to find the furniture missing.

"He said, 'Jared, where's the kitchen set?' " recalls the dad. "Jared said, ' Well, I was at one of my soldiers' houses today and his kids were eating on the floor and they needed the kitchen set more than we did. So we're going to have to find another place to play quarters.' So that's the kind of thing he did."

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But even that kind of generosity pales in comparison to what young Monti did on June 21, 2006, in the rugged northeast corner of Afghanistan near Pakistan. According to a Pentagon account and CNN interviews with soldiers who were there, Sgt. Monti was leading a small patrol that was ambushed by dozens of Taliban fighters. read more

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