Special Forces Soldier Awarded Silver Star

From Jack Army comes this story:

Special Forces Soldier Awarded Silver Star
Via the Army Times:

"CAMP H.M. SMITH — Even as Master Sgt. Suran Sar charged multiple enemy firing at him in the mountains of Afghanistan, he knew it wasn’t his turn to die. But he came within a hairbreadth. As Sar burst into a windowless wood-and-earthen mountain shelter near the Pakistan border, an enemy fighter fired a burst from his AK-47 at point-blank range.

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Two of the bullets missed. A third creased Sar’s Kevlar helmet and snapped his chin strap. Sar won’t give the specifics of what happened next, but the Army Special Forces soldier collected a handful of firearms — most of which weren’t given voluntarily. And yesterday a Silver Star was pinned on Sar’s chest.

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The awards were given voluntarily, they just weren't received voluntarily:
“He didn’t want this,” Army Brig. Gen. David P. Fridovich, commander of Special Operations Command-Pacific, said of the ceremony attended by more than 100 command members and local media.The attention was not intended to embarrass Sar, 39, which it did. Rather, it was to recognize his achievements and “what he has given back to the nation,” Fridovich said.

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In the style of all "Quiet Professionals", MSG Sar just wants to be left alone to do his job, but this is what most impresses me about MSG Sar:
Sar grew up in Cambodia under the oppression of the Khmer Rouge, which separated his family members by age, he said. His father was prosecuted by the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese, and his older brother was executed by the Vietnamese.

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Speaking in a quiet voice, Sar said his mom and two little brothers died of starvation.He came to the United States in 1981, became a U.S. citizen five years later and has been in the Army for 20 years — the past 15 in Special Forces.

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“I tell you, I love this country more than my birthplace,” Sar said. “I came from Cambodia and I lost (a lot) of my family there, and nobody here can tell me what it’s like, the loss of freedom. ... This country gave me so much, and this is a small price to pay, the long deployments away from home.”

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I wish more people that were born in the United States believed they way MSG Sar does. It's a shame that many Americans take what they have for granted."

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A Hat Tip to Blackfive, where I first found the story.