captioning funded by cbs and ford-- built for the road ahead. >> in the last few years, we've discovered the equivalent of two saudi arabias of oil in the form of natural gas in the united states-- not one, but two. >> stahl: he's talking about natural gas extracted from shale, the new hope for america's energy future, with production or exploration in over 30 states, making overnight millionaires of the farmers who lease their land for drilling. so, you gentlemen are living in a good, old-fashioned gold rush.

>> it's a gift from the good lord. >> pitts: even by haiti's standards, this place is incomprehensible. the camp was started out of desperation in the chaotic days following last january's earthquake. if you can believe it, residents actually saw this as a safe haven. a camp leader told us nearly 30 people have been hit by oncoming vehicles-- ten were killed, three of them children. and now, cholera has a foothold in haiti. doctors don't know how fast the deadly disease may spread. >> in haiti, the insults never end. >> logan: what kind of soldier are you? >> i'm average. i'm mediocre. >> logan: he may consider himself mediocre, but this tuesday at the white house, he'll receive the military's highest honor. tonight you'll hear the story of his heroism while fighting in afghanistan's deadly korengal valley. this is the single greatest

honor that the military can bestow on its own. it comes right from the president of the united states himself. that's pretty good for a mediocre soldier. >> think how good the great soldiers are. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm byron pitts. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and andy rooney tonight on "60 minutes." look at all the toyota's for sale. let's go with... i'm selling my toyota rav4. do you know anything at all about the escape? it's a nice light blue color. much like my eyes. my goodness, it's true. the mileage is extraordinary. 28 miles per gallon on the highway. it's a voice-activated sync system. all around, it's better than my toyota. get our best deals. 0% financing and, as a holiday bonus, we'll give you $1500 to use toward your first three payments. is it wrong to drive a toyota to ford's year end celebration? not if you leave it behind.

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>> stahl: natural gas has been the ugly step child of our

national energy debate, never enjoying the political muscle of oil and coal, and never capturing the imagination like solar panels and wind farms. and to top it all off, it was in short supply. but that's changing, and now, this stepchild is being touted as the hope of the future, the answer to our energy problems. what's brought about the change is there's a new unconventional process for extracting natural gas from shale, a dense rock formation two miles underground. and if you're sitting on top of it, you may become a new american phenomenon, a "shale- ionaire." and yet, if the b.p. spill taught us anything, it's that exploring for energy has safety risks. but that can get lost in all the excitement. what's increasingly evident is that shale gas is overwhelmingly abundant right here in the u.s.a. >> aubrey mcclendon: in the last few years, we've discovered the

equivalent of two saudi arabias of oil in the form of natural gas in the united states-- not one, but two. >> stahl: we have twice as much natural gas in this country-- is that what you're saying-- than they have oil in saudi arabia? >> mcclendon: i'm trying to very clearly say exactly that. >> stahl: aubrey mcclendon is the c.e.o. of chesapeake energy, the largest independent gas producer in the country. he's on a mission to get us off foreign oil and dirty coal. gas has nearly half the carbon emissions of coal, and no mercury. but natural gas is still a fossil fuel. >> mcclendon: so is it perfect? no. the answer is, it's not perfect. but for the next 20 years, natural gas is probably our best bet. and the good news is, we've got it. and we've got as much of it as anybody else in the world. >> stahl: look at a map of shale formations across the country, and you'll see that there's production or exploration in over 30 states. it's an american energy renaissance.

10,000 wells will be drilled here in northwest louisiana in some of the poorest communities in the country, where impoverished farmers are becoming overnight millionaires, as they lease their land for drilling. >> c.b. leatherwood: i never dreamed of money like this. >> stahl: now you can do whatever you want? >> leatherwood: i can do what i want. >> stahl: c.b. leatherwood, a retired oil field worker, got a bundle to drill under his farm. >> leatherwood: i've got a copy of the check here. >> stahl: show me. oh, my, look at that-- $434,000. >> leatherwood: right. >> stahl: just like that. >> leatherwood: it fell out of the sky. >> mike smith: boy, you done good, c.b. >> stahl: it fell out of the sky for c.b.'s cousin, mike smith, too. he was paid nearly $2 million. so what'd you do that day? >> smith: i sat back and thought about it for a... all day. and i said, "i'm a millionaire,"

and that didn't sound right but... >> stahl: they actually call them "shale-ionaires," and they don't mind putting up with the noisy, smelly drilling when the wells are built, because they get a cut of the profits, which could last for years and add up to millions more. so, you gentlemen are living in a good old-fashioned gold rush. >> leatherwood: it's a gift from the good lord. >> stahl: last year, shale drilling generated almost $6 billion here in new household earnings. as the rest of the nation plunged into a recession, this place added over 57,000 local jobs, and the cadillac dealership in town is hopping. this is your new car? oh. >> smith: yes. uh-huh. >> stahl: that is nice. >> smith: yes. >> stahl: you love it, don't you? >> smith: yeah, i love it. >> stahl: i like the color. it's champaign... >> smith: it's "gold mist." >> mcclendon: this is a million years worth of shale. >> stahl: people have known for a century that shale contained gas, but it was too difficult and pricy to extract.

i can't believe there's anything in this rock. >> mcclendon: well, it doesn't look like it... >> stahl: it is so solid. i mean, it's really solid. but this is shale under a microscope-- the dark spaces are where the gas is, and it's everywhere. >> mcclendon: or here's a great one. for example... >> stahl: that's what's going on in the middle of this thing? >> mcclendon: yes. >> stahl: the breakthrough in extraction happened when two existing technologies were combined. the first involved accessing the shale by drilling sideways underground. >> we're currently over two miles down. >> stahl: two miles down... >> two miles down. now, later today, we'll turn the bit from vertical to horizontal along this path, and then we'll drill in our target zone, for a mile down to the south. >> stahl: the other technology is hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," where millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, are pumped down the well at enormous pressure. >> we break the rock. we fracture the rock. and that stimulates the ability of the gas to flow into the well bore where we can flow it to the

surface and sell it. >> stahl: in light of the b.p. oil spill in the gulf, i asked aubrey mcclendon about the safety of fracking. what would happen if you go down to dig for shale, and you have an explosion and you destroy a whole part of the country? >> mcclendon: it cannot happen, okay? >> stahl: it cannot happen. why do you say that? >> mcclendon: well, because we're not a mile underneath the surface of the ocean. and if something were to get away-- and there are incidents where wells have loss of control-- you can go... you can go fix it. >> stahl: an underground explosion is impossible because there's no oxygen or anything to ignite a blast. but as you can see from these pictures chesapeake took of their operations, drilling is now a fact of life near homes and farms. and the industry has racked up thousands of accidents and safety violations above ground. this really is your backyard on...

oh, look at this. what happened in tim and christine ruggiero's backyard is happening more and more. they moved to this pastoral ten- acre ranch in decatur, texas, in 2004 to raise their horses and their daughter, reilly. but last year, a company called aruba petroleum came and drilled two wells outside their windows, leaving behind this permanent eyesore. >> tim ruggiero: you see over here on this tank? and you see where it's... where it's just been still leaking? >> stahl: oh, yeah. >> tim ruggiero: why is it doing that? >> stahl: that leaking is just the half of it-- they videotaped oozings and gushings. when the state environmental agency shot these hissing toxic air emissions with infra-red cameras, the company was hit with a fine. i keep hearing that this process, the horizontal drilling and the fracking, is safe. >> tim ruggeiro: well, define "safe." safe for who? safe in the process, or safe for the people that are 200 feet away from it? >> christine ruggeiro: they put a concrete casing down into the ground in between your water table and the drilling fluid,

but cement doesn't ever crack? you don't ever have well blowouts? >> stahl: in other words, taking shortcuts and human error are endemic to this drilling process. here, valves weren't tightened. a tank, left unattended, overflowed, fluids spilled from a frack container. aruba said they could not comment because the ruggieros are suing them. aubrey mcclendon's company, chesapeake, has a much better track record, but that doesn't mean they haven't had problems, too. >> mcclendon: if people are involved, accidents are going to happen. planes crash, trucks crash, cars crash-- it happens. we will have an incident or two. >> stahl: has chesapeake ever had an accident? >> mcclendon: any kind of an accident? sure. probably the most publicized incident was in louisiana. >> stahl: it happened last year, when 17 cows grazing near a drilling site died a gruesome death after drinking fracking fluids that ran off into their pasture. industry-wide, accidents keep happening, like this well

explosion, due to machine malfunctions or workers cutting corners. environmentalists like michael brune, executive director of the sierra club, say the industry is under-regulated. >> michael brune: i would say that they've been cavalier. i would say that they've been irresponsible. >> stahl: what should they have done? what should they do right now? >> brune: the first thing that the industry should do is disclose what chemicals are being used in fracking, and then limit the amount of toxic chemicals to a point of zero. >> stahl: the industry doesn't have to disclose what's in the tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals they use when they fracture the shale, because of the so-called "halliburton loophole." halliburton is a leading fracking company, and the loophole was created in 2005 under vice president dick cheney, who used to be halliburton's c.e.o. >> brune: the 2005 energy bill completely exempted the natural gas industry and fracking technology from any regulation under the safe drinking water act. it's an outrage.

>> stahl: did the vice president put that in there? >> brune: the vice-president advocated for it and he pushed congress to insert it into the language. >> stahl: part of the fracturing process involves you pouring down some pretty nasty chemicals. what happens if they spill all over the place? >> mcclendon: okay, let's define "nasty chemicals." nasty chemicals are underneath your sink. the reality is you don't drink drano for a reason, but you have drano in your house. if you want to define them as nasty, go ahead. >> stahl: there are nasty chemicals that affect your liver, that cause cancer, that shut down your system. >> mcclendon: yeah, you don't want to drink frack fluid. if you take away nothing from this interview... >> stahl: but isn't there a possibility that you go down, and something seeps and it gets into the water supply, gets into the aquifer? >> mcclendon: ah, that's the fear, isn't it? >> stahl: well yes. of course, that's the fear. >> mcclendon: but freshwater aquifers are only from the surface to about 1,000 feet below the surface of the earth, okay? we are fracking wells at depths of 7,000, 8,000, 10,000, 12,000

feet, okay? so there is almost two miles of rock between where we are active and where freshwater is drawn from. >> stahl: the environmental protection agency is just beginning to study the effects of fracking on drinking water-- is the problem fracking, per se, or human error? or consider what happened in this appalachian town in pennsylvania. in the shale gas gold rush, dimock is the ghost town. how many of you lost your water supply? and there are many more? >> yes. >> stahl: a company called cabot oil and gas paid many of the folks here $25 an acre, and they were happy until, one day, a water well exploded. >> bill ely: my boy had come over the night before and said... he just said, "dad, we got gas in the water over there. i can actually shake the jug up and light it." >> stahl: you put a match to your water and it went up in flames? >> ely: i can take my water, just put it in a gallon jug,

shake it up, turn it up, and it'll explode, like. >> stahl: bill ely demonstrated it for us by hooking a hose from his well to a jug and lighting it. ( explosion ) >> ely: scary. >> stahl: state authorities have determined that gas leaked into the water because of a poor cement job. cabot now supplies bottled water to the residents, but has admitted no guilt, so these folks are suing them. >> you know, this is a poor area. this is a perfect place to come in and drill. a lot of guys didn't have work. now, they're driving trucks. the bars are hopping, the rentals are full. so there is an economic boom here, but at what price? >> i can live without natural gas; i can't live without my water. >> brune: you have these landowners who will say that their water was clean. they could drink. they couldn't light it on fire. and then, the gas industry came in, and now, taking a shower makes them sick. there are too many landowners who are describing the exact

same scenario, and so it can't just... >> stahl: all over the country. >> brune: ...can't just be a coincidence. there's something wrong here. >> stahl: so here we have natural gas from shale touted as the solution to our energy problems by one group. another group says it's the biggest environmental nightmare. >> brune: ah, well, actually, they're both correct. so what we need to do is promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal and oil, but hold the industry accountable for tighter standards. >> stahl: which aubrey mcclendon says he would go along with, because, he says, natural gas is such a huge game changer. >> mcclendon: if you use natural gas, america can establish independence from opec. it can put americans back to work. we can lower our carbon emissions, and we can begin to improve the economy, as well, by not exporting a billion dollars a day of american wealth. the greatest wealth transfer in human history takes place every day, and it doesn't have to. >> stahl: as part of its study, the e.p.a. asked nine companies to disclose to the government the chemicals used in fracking.

eight complied; only halliburton said no. so last tuesday, the e.p.a. subpoenaed them. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by: >> mitchell: good evening. bank officials face tough questioning tuesday on senate hearings on sloppy foreclosure practices. the median home size has shrunk almost 10% since 2007 from 2,300 square feet to 2,100. and "megamind" won the weekend box office again. i'm russ mitchell, cbs news.

>> pitts: 2010 had already been a disastrous year for haiti when a cholera epidemic erupted a few weeks ago that's killed over 700 people in the countryside, and

is spreading to the capital, port-au-prince, where millions of people live in wretched conditions, a perfect breeding ground for the waterborne disease to flourish. this latest disaster couldn't have come at a worse time. haiti was already struggling to recover from last january's earthquake that killed 300,000 people. to help it get back on its feet, nearly half the households in america donated money, and countries from around the world pledged billions. we traveled to haiti to see what's happened since then, and we were surprised to find how little progress has been made. haitians call this makeshift encampment the carrefour median for obvious reasons. it's situated, precariously, on a ten-foot-wide median, sandwiched between two lanes of a busy highway in carrefour, a huge city on the outskirts of haiti's capital, port-au-prince. even by haiti's standards, this place is incomprehensible. the camp was started out of desperation in the chaotic days

following last january's earthquake. if you can believe it, residents actually saw this as a safe haven. since then, the population's grown from just a handful of people to 3,800 who call this median home. when we got to this tent, a woman who lives here with five other people invited us in. how do six people live in here? you sleep in here? ( speaking creole ) >> ( translated ): so, four people sleep this way and two sleep this way, so you have two horizontal and four vertical. >> pitts: this has also been seven-year-old jean edward's home for ten months. what do you think about living here? >> jean-edouard ( translated ): it's not good i'm afraid of a car. >> pitts: with good reason-- outside, traffic races by at breakneck speed a few feet from where children play. a camp leader told us nearly 30 people have been hit by oncoming vehicles.

ten were killed, three of them children. >> yvon jerome: it's not easy... >> pitts: almost no government official has ever come here, so when we showed up with the mayor of carrefour, yvon jerome... ( people speaking creole ) he got an earful. ( people speaking creole ) >> yvon jerome: yeah, they need food. and i say to them, we're not there to give them food. we trying to get them a better place to live, but not... not provide them food. >> pitts: but mr. mayor, i mean, can you even call this living? >> jerome: no, it's not living. it's not living. it's... they're just there. they just explain to me, yesterday, there's an accident right here. a baby was get hurt by a car. >> pitts: the international community has promised to give haiti more than $5 billion. $5 billion! but yet, these people are living on a median. >> jerome: with newspaper, with tv news every day, i can heard about the number of the money. not see the money. >> pitts: a step up from the carrefour median is jean marie vincent park, the largest tent camp in port-au-prince.

it's a city within a city, home to 50,000 people-- main street, shopping, fresh water. but this is no oasis. conditions are deplorable. with people living on top of each other, the camp has become a breeding ground for domestic violence, gangs, rapes. there are row after row of outdoor latrines, women washing clothes, children bathing in canals. ever since these camps sprung up, conditions have been so unhygienic, there were fears they could become a breeding ground for waterborne diseases like cholera... fears that came true on october 22, when an epidemic of cholera struck the remote countryside. haiti's prime minister is jean max bellerive. were you surprised when the epidemic erupted? >> prime minister jean max bellerive: yeah, sure. it was... >> pitts: scare you? >> bellerive: yeah, my biggest concern was that the capital, port-au-prince, was seriously touched for the concentration of

the population, and the condition a lot of the population are living right now. so, i was afraid. >> pitts: at first, the epidemic was only in the countryside, where david walton, an american physician from boston, has worked for 13 years. >> dr. david walton: it went from a few cases of diarrhea that were quite suspicious to, you know, all hands on deck. this is an epidemic of... the proportions of which we have never seen before in haiti. there are 60 cases of... of acute, watery diarrhea that we had heard about. the next day, 24 hours later, 500 cases. >> pitts: all right, what is this now? >> walton: gloves, just to make sure. >> pitts: dr. walton works for partners in health, a u.s.-based international health organization that operates 15 hospitals and clinics in haiti. this one, la colline, is the only hospital for miles. while we were there, a 16-year- old girl named manoushka had just arrived. it had taken her a full day just to get here. she had all the classic symptoms

of cholera. cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by drinking contaminated water. if not treated quickly, it can kill in a matter of hours. so dr. walton and his haitian colleagues rushed to start manoushka on i.v. fluids, and a life-saving mixture of ordinary bottled water, sugar, and salt. these are not ideal medical conditions. >> walton: these are not ideal medical conditions. when this hospital was built three years ago, we did not envision a crisis of this proportion. >> pitts: since the epidemic began, the staff here has treated over 550 cholera patients. five have died. friends and neighbors of this woman were praying for her to live. >> walton: look, we're going to get through this. however we do it, we're going to do it, but there is a way forward. we have to. there... there is no other way. we're not going to lay down and die.

it's going to be slow, it's going to be tough, it's going to be agonizing. but we will make it through. >> pitts: to help haiti make it through, the international community created the interim haiti recovery commission last april. its mandate-- to control and coordinate the monumental job and the billions of dollars to rebuild nearly everything here. haiti's prime minister serves as one co-chairman. the other co-chair is an american who honeymooned here 35 years ago. your plate was full before the earthquake. why take this on? >> bill clinton: i took it because i know more about haiti and i've spent more time there than almost any other american figure, and so i know a lot of the leaders and i understand the culture better than a lot of people do. and i love the place. >> pitts: former president clinton brings clout, credibility, and power to the job-- power to attract donors, and get countries that pledged money for haiti to pay up. does it frustrate you, make you

angry, the... the lack of funding moving in to... to get things done? >> clinton: it's all frustrating, because people are suffering down there. i'm frustrated we don't have more jobs and investment. i'm frustrated we haven't, you know, fixed all the ports and airports. my job is just to push as hard as i can and get as much done as quick as i can. >> pitts: frustration describes how almost everyone here feels. ten months after the quake, the lack of resources and funding have hampered everything. more hands than machinery and heavy equipment are removing the rubble that's choking the city, and so far, only 19,000 of the 130,000 temporary shelters the u.n. says haiti needs have been built. and nobody is more upset at that than haiti's prime minister, who says it all boils down to money. and a lot of it hasn't arrived yet. simple terms-- of the $5 billion-plus that's been pledged to haiti, how much have you received so far, percentage- wise?

>> bellerive: i'd say 15%, 20%. >> pitts: 15%, 20%. so, how much of a factor is the lack of funding? >> bellerive: a big factor. right now, we don't have the budget or the financing to remove the rubble that has to be removed. >> pitts: you don't have enough money? >> bellerive: no, clearly not. clearly not. >> pitts: you lose sleep over this? >> clinton: well, i... i worry about it a lot, because i don't want anybody to die because of the floods. but i just want the people who are watching this program to understand that it's not like anybody's really been asleep at the switch down there. >> pitts: there is widespread perception that the recovery is going so slow. why is that? why... why is it taking just so long? >> clinton: this was a natural disaster that hit the country in a highly impacted, dense urban area. now, it's covered with rubble, which has to be cleared as you do the rebuilding. housing always takes the longest. >> pitts: housing is anton devries' specialty. devries is the construction manager for adra, the

development arm of the seventh day adventists, who've been working in haiti for over 25 years. devries, a south african engineer, had supervised the construction of 1,300 temporary shelters financed by usaid, and was ready to build a lot more, when he ran into an unexpected road block, the haitian government. is this warehouse normally this empty? >> anton devries: no. this warehouse should be packed to capacity right to the ceiling full of stuff for the immediate displaced people, waiting are they to be helped, which we can't do because our containers is stuck in port. >> pitts: when we were there in august, 24 containers loaded with his building materials-- enough to build 1,200 temporary shelters-- had been stuck for months in this special customs area in port-au-prince because of a bureaucratic glitch. >> devries: i've got a list of each container. when it left united states, before the container arrives

here, we already have all of the documentation with a packing list from the beginning. so, there is no... there's no information that anybody need that we don't have. >> pitts: to prove his point, devries took us to his office and showed us some of his paperwork, and a $6,000 check, written to the haitian government, to pay an imposed storage fee. how does it make you feel to know that? >> devries: very bad, very sad, frustrated. if it was your mother or your child waiting for five months in a small little tent, and somebody come and say, "i will help you give you shelter, no problem, but i can't because your material, your government is holding in the port." would i be happy? no. >> pitts: prime minister bellerive did not know the specifics of devries's situation, but his office oversees haiti's ports and customs. >> bellerive: we don't charge for any goods given to the haitian people, when it's done properly. >> pitts: period. >> bellerive: period.

>> pitts: so, in this case, then, you're saying there's something they haven't done properly. >> bellerive: exactly. >> pitts: since we interviewed the prime minister, all but one of the containers has been released. according to anton devries's office, the problem was a missing government seal, a minor problem compared to the cholera epidemic. the official death toll surpassed 700 this week, and there are fears it could get out of control. i can tell that makes you angry. >> walton: it makes me frustrated. i can understand if there was another earthquake that happened. but cholera? you know, it's just... it seems like the insults never end. >> pitts: in haiti, the insults never end. >> walton: in haiti, the insults never end. >> welcome dot cbs sports update presented by viagra. i'm james brown in new york with the scores from around the nfl today.

jay cutler throws three touchdown passes in the bears triumph while jacksonville prevails in last-second hail mary. the n.f.c. west teams are in late fourth-quarter action. buffalo wins its first game of the season. for more news and scores, log on to cbssports.com. so why would you let something

>> logan: at the white house on tuesday, a young man from iowa, 25-year-old staff sergeant sal giunta, will become the first living soldier to earn the medal of honor since the vietnam war. it's the nation's highest military award for heroism in battle, and it's given for acts of extreme bravery in the face of almost certain death. sal giunta earned this honor for his actions on a remote hilltop in eastern afghanistan on the night of october 25, 2007, for repeatedly running into enemy fire to save american lives and rescue a fellow soldier from the hands of the taliban. tonight, you'll hear about what happened, and the events leading up to that night, from sal giunta and the men who fought with him. you'll also hear about a place

known as the korengal valley, where the taliban are allied with al qaeda and put up such a fight that the u.s. eventually gave up on the valley and pulled out last april. when sal giunta was serving there at the age of just 22, it was considered one of the roughest tours of duty in afghanistan. did you ever wake up in the morning and think, "what the hell am i doing here?" >> sal giunta: woke up every morning thinking, "what the hell am i doing here?" >> logan: really? >> giunta: i mean, we know what we're doing there, but "what the hell are we doing here?" >> logan: in the korengal valley? >> giunta: in the korengal valley. >> logan: was there anywhere in the korengal valley that you could have felt safe? >> giunta: maybe in your dreams. ( laughs ) >> logan: for sal giunta and the men of the 173rd airborne brigade, this is what home was like for 15 months. the valley itself is not very big, just six miles long and a mile across. but it was so dangerous here for u.s. soldiers that it became known to americans as the "valley of death." ( gunfire )

and when battle company arrived here, they could see how hard it had been on the soldiers they were replacing. >> erick gallardo: some guys were talking to themselves, some guys wouldn't even come up to us. they wanted nothing to do with us. you know, none of us understood why. and it wasn't long after that we figured out why they didn't want to talk to us. >> logan: why was it? >> gallardo: that valley just took every ounce of life out of you. >> logan: 26-year-old staff sergeant erick gallardo was sal giunta's squad leader, and he was back in afghanistan on another tour of duty when we met up with him, along with their ammo bearer, sergeant michael burns, and their machine gunner, sergeant brett perry. >> brett perry: that 15 months in the korengal valley, it was hell on earth. >> logan: this was the view from their tiny base looking out into the valley. enemy territory for as far as they could see. >> perry: there's somebody right out there trying to kill you every day. they wake up every day and they want to kill you. >> gallardo: they weren't just hitting us on patrol; they were hitting us where we lived. so there was guys, you know, who refused to go to the bathroom during the day because you'd have to go out in the open.

they wouldn't risk it. they'd wait till night, hold it until dark. >> logan: they were far from their base when sal giunta earned the medal of honor, deep inside the taliban's stronghold in the valley on a major offensive. the soldiers believe this attack on the third day was carried out by the same group of taliban fighters who would later ambush giunta and his men. it was filmed by elizabeth rubin on assignment for the "new york times magazine." one of their most respected soldiers, staff sergeant larry rougle, was killed when his position was overrun. >> giunta: that was just a big, big blow to us... all of us, i think. and it was kind of a... it felt like a momentum shift. >> logan: as the soldiers listened to the taliban on their radios, they now sounded more confident, and what they said was chilling.

>> perry: they were saying, "we want a body. let's get a body." >> logan: "we want a body"? >> perry: yeah. they wanted to see if they could get an american body this time. >> logan: sure enough, on the last night of the operation, october 25, they were ambushed. it happened just as they were heading back to base. sergeant joshua brennan was in the lead; behind him was specialist franklin eckrode. sergeant gallardo and giunta followed next. >> giunta: everything... everything happened. the world happened in that next step. tracers, bullets, rpgs, explosions, wings, zings, tings, snaps, pops, cracks. >> logan: based on diagrams we obtained from the u.s. military, this is what happened: at least a dozen taliban fighters executed an l-shaped ambush, firing at the soldiers from two sides simultaneously, pinning down the entire unit in an instant. >> giunta: if we could have done it, we would have done it to them.

it was perfectly done. >> logan: did you know instantly that they were right on you? >> giunta: you can see the muzzle flashes. they're there. i mean, less of a distance than you can throw a baseball. they were inside that... that gap. >> logan: the two men at the front were down and cut off from the rest of their squad by heavy fire. >> gallardo: i started sprinting their way. i got about five, six feet. and that's when i just had rpgs hit everywhere. >> logan: you were completely pinned down? >> gallardo: i was done. i was pinned. so, you know, i just started turning at them and shooting. i... shooting, backpedaling. >> giunta: and right when he started coming back, i watched his head kind of... kind of hit. >> gallardo: i fell. while i'm falling is when i got shot in the helmet. i remember thinking, "did i just get shot in the helmet? did that just happen?" >> logan: so you had to get him out of that spot. >> giunta: i'm just going to grab him, just pull him back. >> gallardo: before i know it, giunta is coming into the open and he's pulling me out of the open. >> logan: did you think, "thank god he's here"? >> gallardo: oh, yeah. i was... i was on my back like a

turtle. >> logan: and if giunta hadn't come to you? >> gallardo: i'd have been stuck there, just laying there for them to shoot at. >> logan: as he was dragging erick gallardo to cover, sal giunta was hit twice. his body armor saved him. >> giunta: i got hit in the lower part of my front vest. >> logan: of your bulletproof vest? >> giunta: i don't know if it's bulletproof, but it can definitely stop one or two. >> logan: did you feel that? >> giunta: i felt it. there's adrenaline going on and everything, but it just placed the weight across my whole chest. couldn't ask for anything better than that, because a bullet just hit me and i felt air. >> logan: giunta, gallardo and two of their gunners charged forward. they were trying to reach their two wounded men pinned down at the front. you were running into a wall of bullets. >> giunta: together. so that's what we did, and we threw... we threw our first grenades. and we ran and we shot. and we did it again and we got closer. and then, eckrode was there. >> logan: specialist eckrode had been shot four times.

gallardo stopped to help him. >> gallardo: he was just hysterical. you know, he kept telling us, "i see them. i saw them. they have him." "they have who?" >> logan: you didn't know. >> gallardo: we didn't know. >> logan: could you hear what eckrode was saying? >> giunta: he said that he was shot. and, i mean, gallardo was there, was taken care of. >> logan: sergeant gallardo told us that eckrode was hysterical, and not because he was wounded, that he said he just kept screaming, "they've got him." and he didn't know what eckrode meant at that moment. >> giunta: no, never heard that. it makes it easier sometimes not knowing everything. >> logan: what sal giunta didn't know at the time was that the taliban already had 22-year-old sergeant joshua brennan, a

tough, easygoing soldier who'd earned a bronze star and had been named soldier of the year on his first deployment to afghanistan. this is brennan with giunta just a few days before the ambush. there was no one on the squad he was closer to, and it was giunta who would save him from dying in enemy hands. in the midst of the ambush, he ran head on into the taliban guns, through their fighting positions, and into a clearing, where taliban fighters were carrying joshua brennan away. >> giunta: i saw three guys, and i saw two of them carrying one guy. and one guy had his arms and one guy had his legs, and they were... they were dragging him. >> logan: did you see their faces? >> giunta: i saw their hats and their beards, and they had... i saw their guns... i saw their guns were slung on their back, because their hands were full. >> logan: what did you see when you ran up towards brennan and giunta was there?

what did you actually see? >> gallardo: giunta firing, giunta hitting. i saw the one body falling. i saw brennan's body being dropped. and i saw the other shadow running. and giunta was still shooting. >> giunta: i shot one guy, and he falls, and the other guy was already running away the whole time because i was just running and shooting, just closing the gap. and the one guy dropped and i started going for the other guy, and by that time, i was at brennan. >> logan: did you know the moment when you grabbed him... you knew he was badly wounded, you could see instantly? >> giunta: i just started assessing, you know? then, he starts struggling breathing. and he's complaining that there's something in his mouth, and it's part of his mouth that's in his mouth. >> gallardo: he knew we were there. he had drifted out of consciousness but, you know, he knew it was us now. >> logan: did he say anything about being taken? >> gallardo: no, no. he just wanted to make sure we were there with him. >> logan: the ambush had lasted just three minutes. sergeant gallardo still had to

get his squad back to base, hoping they wouldn't get hit again. they made it back safely. but later that night, joshua brennan died in surgery. >> gallardo: i remember just hearing that, and just walking off and just finding a corner, and just lost it. i couldn't believe it. i needed to see how giunta was doing. >> logan: how was giunta doing? >> gallardo: i've seen him better. >> logan: did he get the significance of what he'd done? >> gallardo: no. he didn't think anything of it, you know? i mean, you look at it, yeah, it was a big deal. he just prevented the enemy from having that huge victory and us having to go into an even deeper part of the korengal valley to where nobody has ever been and try and find an american soldier. >> logan: you might never have found him. >> gallardo: yeah, that's something i don't really like to think about.

the last thing brennan ever saw was us. you know, he saw us fighting for him. you know, the first face he saw was giunta coming up to his side. we fought for him, and he's home with his family now because of that. >> giunta: i have never given everything. sergeant joshua brennan gave everything. >> logan: so did specialist hugo mendoza, the team's medic, who was killed in the first moments of the ambush. specialist franklin eckrode survived his wounds, and sergeant erick gallardo was awarded the silver star for his actions that night. sal giunta, who is now serving at a u.s. base in italy, is not yet able to reconcile their losses with becoming an american hero. >> giunta: i'm not at peace with that at all. and... and coming and talking about it and people wanting to shake my hand because of it, it hurts me because it's not what i want.

and to be with so many people doing so much stuff, and then to be singled out and put forward. i mean, everyone did something. okay, someone wrote about this, and then someone else approved it. and then a story was told and handshakes were made, and then sooner or later, i'm talking to the president of the united states. i don't see how that happened. >> logan: like it or not, sal giunta is now part of an elite fraternity. there are only 86 medal of honor recipients alive today. for the rest of his life, he'll enjoy certain privileges, like a guaranteed seat at presidential inaugurations. and he'll be honored every year at events like this. but it's something he may never be comfortable with. what kind of soldier are you? >> giunta: i'm average. i'm mediocre. >> logan: you're mediocre? >> giunta: yeah, this is only

one moment. i mean, i don't think i did anything that anyone else i was with wouldn't have done. i was in a position to do it. that was what needed to be done, so that's what i did. >> logan: this is the single greatest honor that the military can bestow on its own, and it comes right from the president of the united states himself. that's pretty good for a mediocre soldier. >> giunta: think how good the great soldiers are. [ female announcer ] with rheumatoid arthritis, there's the life you live... and the life you want to live. fortunately there's enbrel, the #1 most doctor-prescribed biologic medicine for ra. enbrel can help relieve pain, stiffness, fatigue, and stop joint damage. because enbrel suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections.

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>> pelley: now andy rooney. >> rooney: some days, it seems as though i spend about half my time reading surveys. it isn't enough to know what you think; you have to read about what other people think, too. they take surveys for everything now. you read about surveys asking what people think about the economy, about cars, about what people are buying, what they're eating, and what they think of the job that president obama is doing. a gallup poll said that president obama's approval rating was at an all-time low. gallup said that they surveyed over 90,000 americans for this one poll. i mean, where was i when they were calling people about president obama? the survey said that only 44% of us approve of president's obama's performance. well, i surveyed nine of my

friends, and eight of them said they liked obama but didn't trust a gallup poll. as far as i'm concerned, obama's doing the best job he knows how, and it's good enough for me. something called the 2010 mercer quality of living survey chose the top 221 best cities to live in, in the whole world. according to this survey, the three best cities were vienna, zurich and geneva. new york city came in 49th out of the 221 cities that they rated. i was born in albany, new york. i've lived in london, cologne, paris and beverly hills. i've lived in new york city for a long time now, and i'll take new york. i forget whether i've ever been to zurich or not. i wouldn't want to live in a city that i forget whether i've ever been to or not. you can't forget new york. despite all the surveys i read, i've never been asked what i think about anything. my answers would be a lot

different than the answers they say people give. they should survey people about what they think of surveys. >> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes." [ male announcer ] learn about a free trial offer from abilify. if you're taking an antidepressant and still feel depressed, one option your doctor may consider is adding abilify. abilify treats depression in adults when added to an antidepressant. some people had symptom improvement in as early as one to two weeks after adding abilify. now with the abilify (me+) program, your first two weeks of abilify can be free. abilify is not for everyone.

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