Chuck Hagel arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday for his first trip there as the secretary of defense, saying, "We're still at war."

On the flight over, Hagel gave a short press briefing to set up the visit, saying that he was traveling to Afghanistan to thank the troops serving there and to better understand "where we are in Afghanistan."

Hagel would not talk specifics about the pace of U.S. troop drawdown through the end of 2014, saying that the president has not made his decision yet.

Asked whether he's concerned that the U.S. has forgotten about the war in Afghanistan, Hagel said, "I can't speak for the American people, or where we are on attention spans, but I would tell you now as the secretary of defense who has some responsibility for assuring that this transition be conducted responsibly, that we're still at war."

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"We're still at war in Afghanistan," he later reiterated.

Then Hagel gave a somewhat convoluted reason for why the U.S. is at war there, saying the U.S. sought "to give the Afghan people an opportunity for their country, their people, to be free of terrorists and a government that was very hostile to what was going on in the neighborhood, and certainly as an effect of what happened September 11, 2001."  He added that "I think we need to follow through the reasons we first went there, what we have tried to do."

Hagel said that it "was never the intention of the United States to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely," but then added that the U.S. still has "troops in a different capacity in South Korea, troops in Europe, Okinawa."

Asked whether the war is reminiscent of Vietnam, Hagel said, "The only thing I would say is the world we live in today is so complicated. And we have to factor that into our policies and everything that we do.  And I think that, that speaks for itself, that complicated world that we live in."

Finally, asked about the recent North Korean threats, Hagel said that "the United States of America and our allies are prepared to deal with any threat, and any reality that occurs in the world."

He added, "We are aware of what's going on.  We have partnerships in that part of the world that are important, and I think that -- that that reality is --- is clear, and that's what we will -- will continue to do."

U.S. officials say Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, captured last month in Turkey and now in New York, has spent most of the last decade in Iran, in some sort of confinement.

Back in late 2001, as U.S. troops and Afghan tribal forces were dismantling the Taliban control of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden made a decision.

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He sent his operators, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Zubaydah to the cities of Pakistan where they were to hide out and plan further attacks against the US.  All of the key players were captured or killed, with the exception of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 who remains at large, having survived at least three Predator attacks.

At the same time, bin Laden sent his top managers, al-Qaida's Management Council, to Iran, arming them with money to bribe their way across the border, according to multiple US and Iranian officials. Bin Laden apparently hoped that the Iranians would see the group not as Sunni terrorists but as "an enemy of my enemy," as one senior U.S. official put it.

Among those who made their way into Iran were Saif al-Adel, al-Qaida’s military director; bin Laden's son Saad; and Abu Ghaith, the group's communications director ... and also bin Laden's son-in-law.

At one point not long after its arrival, this group, numbering in the hundreds with family members and bodyguards, was captured by Iranian authorities. Although senior U.S. officials have told NBC News they did not know the conditions of their confinement — "it was the blackest of black boxes," one former senior U.S. official told NBC News — Iranian officials said the group was "in jail."

One Iranian official, former U.N. ambassador Javad Zarif, told NBC News in the mid-2000s that "no nation has captured as many al-Qaida members as Iran." US officials admit that other than some mundane communications, they were unaware of any significant roles played by the group while in captivity.

"Every once in a while, we would intercept non-operational communications from them to relatives back home. That was it," said a former high-ranking U.S. official.  

The U.S. didn't know where the group was held nor all of the members’ identities. On occasion, there would be reports that all or some had been released, but there was little confirmation. Many in U.S. intelligence believed Iran held onto them for use as bargaining chips and not just with the U.S. They were in effect hostages. If al-Qaida carried out attacks in Iran, as it had in the 1990s, the group could face harm.

On occasion, flurries of intelligence would lead to further investigation, but again without any resolution.

In 2009, Saad bin Laden was killed in a Predator attack in Pakistan, leading to speculation that others had been released. But again, U.S. officials could not determine how many, if any, had been let go.  Moreover, it was not a high priority for the U.S. because the individuals were no longer considered much of a threat since they had been out of action for so long.

Last month, Abu Ghaith was detained in Turkey then was being sent to Kuwait via Jordan. But he was intercepted in Jordan and brought to the U.S., according to U.S. officials. 

According to court documents, he has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans, including actions related to the 9/11 attacks.

Officials say that Abu Ghaith is unlikely to have any operational information because he has been in Iran for so long.  Now, they admit his intelligence value may be more about his captivity in Iran and whether he was released or escaped.

NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams contributed to this report.

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MOSCOW — A Soviet war veteran reported missing in action during fighting in Afghanistan 33 years ago has been found living as a local healer in the province of Herat, news agency Ria reported.

The soldier, who was rescued by Afghans after being wounded in the first months after the Soviet Union's invasion in 1979, was tracked down by a Moscow-based group of war veterans.

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A native of the former Soviet Central Asian state of Uzbekistan, he now goes by the name of Sheikh Abdullah and has adopted the local dress and profession of the healer who nursed him back to health.

The deputy head of the Afghan war veterans' committee said Abdullah, whose given name is Bakhretdin Khakimov, mostly had forgotten the Russian language and never tried to contact his relatives after suffering severe head trauma in the fighting.

Alexander Lavrentyev, who met with Abdullah in Herat last month, said the veteran, who was 20 when he went missing, still bore the scars of his injury. His face is creased by a nervous tic and his hand and shoulder shake.

"He was just happy he survived,'' Lavrentyev was quoted by Ria as saying at a presser in Moscow on Monday.

The committee says it has found 29 of 264 soldiers still listed as missing from the bloody decade-long conflict. It said seven of those it contacted chose to stay in Afghanistan.

Some 15,000 Soviet troops were killed in the fighting that followed the Soviet Union's incursion to support a communist vassal government in Kabul against Islamist mujahideen fighters armed by the United States.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

KABUL, Afghanistan —  I wondered, approaching Kabul over the snow-shrouded Hindu Kush mountains, what the story of the moment would be in the teeming city below. 

It had been six years since I’d last visited Afghanistan’s capital, a short visit then that included an interview with President Hamid Karzai as part of the last of six long reporting assignments since 9/11— that one stretching from Paktika and Gardez in the southeast to Herat in the west.

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More than 11 years had passed since my first Afghan assignment, over the Kyber Pass from Pakistan and then into Jalalabad days after the Taliban had fled;  the arc of America’s longest war.

"Not much different," offered my seatmate, a senior NATO official from one of the 40 countries remaining in the coalition that has alternately steered or suffered through Afghanistan’s bloody march toward stand-alone status as a reconstituted nation.

"You’ll see some new construction under way in the city, but on the surface it’ll be little changed from what you saw before."

Driving to our quarters, I found myself playing an old game: peering at the cars huffing and puffing along the city’s crowded streets, I counted the number of women drivers.  And got the same answer I’d counted on most days, 11 years ago.

Zero.

* * * * *

That so few women drive — cars, bicycles, any conveyance where they are unaccompanied by men — is a relatively small fact of life here but it’s emblematic.  

Afghanistan is still waiting for the changes that will signal that a threshold has been reached, and a fundamental change in the status of women, and in their prospects after the 2014 withdrawal of most coalition combat troops, is one of the changes that matter.

It’s women who will suffer most after the withdrawal, said Kimberly Motley, an American lawyer living and working in Afghanistan for the past five years as an advocate for abused women. 

"I’ve been surprised that it’s been mostly men now clamoring desperately for a way to leave, when it’s women who will be affected so profoundly," she said.  

With NATO forces gone they’ll have far less protection, she told us, while even under the limited protection that now exists there have been attacks against women so savage as to have commanded headlines worldwide. 

It’s been a consensus in the international community that this poorest and most corrupt of countries may yet be welcomed fully as a sovereign nation, but only when its women are treated with dignity and as equals under law and custom. While serving as secretary of state in 2001, Colin Powell stressed that women's rights were “non-negotiable.”

* * * * * 

As for negotiations for peace and reconciliation with the Taliban, they are, for all practical purposes, non-existent.  A handful of self-described representatives of Taliban leadership have set up office space in Doha, Qatar, and overtures have been made with the goal of starting substantive talks.

"But here’s the problem," a highly placed Western diplomat told me, asking that he not be identified. "Karzai only wants face-to-face discussions with the Taliban, at the negotiating table — and not with interlocutors who may or may not represent Mullah Mohammed Omar and the true Taliban leadership.  He’s not interested in discussing theoretical possibilities, if nothing of consequence is going to happen."

The Taliban, meanwhile, seem uninterested in discussing any possibilities short of a return to complete power in Afghanistan. 

Said Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar, one of the Taliban's "negotiators" in Doha, there will be a "snowball effect" after the 2014 withdrawal, the Taliban waiting patiently to make their move. 

"Anything short of a total victory,” he said, “is unacceptable." There’s a saying here, attributed to the Taliban: "They have the weapons; we have the time."

Still, the Western diplomat said, "We’ve opened a door in Doha, and hopefully there will be an answer and real negotiations might begin."

I reminded him of the timeworn political cliché, "Hope is not a strategy."

He smiled. "Well, it’s more than mere hope," he said.

The diplomat talked about advances on the periphery of the central questions about peace talks and post-2014 security: an imminent new mining law that will encourage foreign investors to ante in for a stake in the trillion dollars in copper, iron, gold and oil reserves within reach beneath this country’s battered landscape;  advances despite notable setbacks in the training and readiness of Afghanistan’s army and national police forces; real improvements in the prospects for some women — in medicine, law and even the armed services.  

"It’s not just hope," the diplomat repeated.

* * * * * 

An old friend named Shirzad came by to visit on Saturday.  He had worked for NBC News in the past and asked that we not use his family name for security reasons.  

We talked about the days and months just after 9/11, when we first met, when in his home city of Jalalabad the Taliban had suddenly fled under the punishment of American bombing raids, and the eventual insertion of American special forces chasing Bin Laden and his surrogates through the mountains and caves of Tora Bora. 

There were so many signs of optimism then: little girls lining up giddily to go to school, some women braving the markets having shed their burqas, talk among the men about a new future when none had seemed possible for so many years.

But that future had not arrived, Shirzad said. The Taliban were a "shadow government" in so many villages and neighborhoods, in control by implication and threat, just waiting.

"My family, and many of those I work with, we have been threatened with death." So he’s leaving, he says, having spent months negotiating a labyrinth of paperwork to gain approval to take his family of nine to the U.S. and take his chances there if he can. 

His brother, with his family of eight, is trying for the same option. "It is the only way for me," he told me. "The local police, they will not protect us when NATO soldiers are gone — many are Taliban or support them."

He offered a sad smile: "No more for me, in Afghanistan."

What there is, he said, is corruption and danger in every direction.  Away from Kabul there were still drug lords ruling over fiefdoms fueled by flourishing poppy fields. Even in Kabul, he said, travel can be treacherous, trust unwise.

And attorney Motley has more clients than she can handle.

And 30 local police died in a two-day period last week in three suicide attacks for which the Taliban claimed credit.

And President Karzai complains about not getting enough American weapons and support, while at the same time ordering that American and NATO forces withdraw from a Kabul suburb because of unconfirmed rumors of harassment and attacks against civilians.

And in my third trip through the streets of a city I hadn’t seen in years, I looked again for any women drivers.

And couldn't find a single one. Again.

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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — It's been called the most dangerous place in the most dangerous region on the planet.

A rugged swath of tribal territory nestled between Pakistan and Afghanistan, Waziristan is ground zero for some of the region's most notorious militant groups and warlords, including the Pakistani Taliban and Haqqani network.

North and South Waziristan are hit by more U.S. drone attacks than anywhere else in the world.

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NBC News obtained rare access to South Waziristan and last week became the first foreign team of journalists to report from North Waziristan.

Long-ignored by the rest of the country, Waziristan is one of the least developed and least educated sections of Pakistan. Literacy rates for women in some areas are in the single digits. With little infrastructure, funding, or investment, many make their living by engaging in criminal activity, cross-border smuggling, or signing up to join militant groups.

The Taliban is believed to pay 10,000 - 12,000 Pakistan rupees a month (roughly $100 - $120) to foot soldiers, with bonuses for carrying out ambushes, killing a soldier, or even members of military families.

Confronting the violence, the Pakistan military is diversifying its campaign in the "war on terror," no longer just fighting in the region, but also beginning to rebuild it.

"There are only less than half a percent of people who are fighting as terrorists. What about the more than 99.5 percent of people?" asks Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa, who commanded the army division in South Waziristan in 2010 before becoming official military spokesman.

In the wake of a major operation in 2009, the Pakistan Army has largely succeeded in pushing back the militant threat from South Waziristan. The area is now considered secure and tribal communities that fled the fighting are starting to return.

Bajwa realized that if the tribal communities weren't given something to replace their previous way of life, they might again become willing to help or harbor terrorists.

"Looking at it in a larger security context, you can't really separate development from security," said Bajwa. "So we're doing this to serve the larger purpose as well. "

Public floggings
In the village of Chagh Malai, the army constructed a marketplace, complete with dozens of individual shops carrying everything from cloth to medicine to household supplies. Tribal communities here previously maintained individual shops in their homes or in roadside stalls. The marketplace, army commanders said, gives them a sense of community and a central commercial gathering place. They have plans to build 30 complexes like it across the area.

Tribal elder Akhlas Khan excitedly toured the market last week, introducing store owners and showing off inventory.

"Previously, I'd have to travel four or five hours to get these," he said, gesturing to a small shop carrying electrical goods. "Now, I only need to come here!"

In Sararogha, South Waziristan, an 88-shop market complex now stands at the same site the Taliban — once headquartered here — used to use for public floggings and executions.

"These communities, the vast majority of them, have seen the worst kind of atrocities known to the human race," said Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mahmood Hayat, commander of the Pakistan Army's 40th Division in South Waziristan.

"They've been subjected to coercion — mental and physical -- by the terrorists in order to acquiesce them to support," he added. "They've seen their loved ones being butchered in front of their own eyes. So that is the kind of trauma this society has seen. And therefore the greater the challenge to bring back the confidence of these people into the state machinery."

Trading routes and schools
At the heart of the army's plans to rebuild the area is a 370-mile road — funded in large part by USAID money. The road, half of which is complete, will connect the isolated and insular tribal communities to each other, as well as the rest of mainstream Pakistan and to trading routes across the border in Afghanistan.

When finished, the roadway will offer a third link from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and the army hopes, will encourage business development along its path through Waziristan.

In addition to the road project, the army has taken on development projects far outside its traditional roles. 

Along with the markets, two military schools, known here as Cadet Colleges, were built in South Waziristan to offer young men a rigorous education and boarding-school environment, unlike any educational opportunity available in the region before.

Col. Zahid Naseem Akbar, principal of the Cadet College, Spinkai, said he hopes the school will gives boys in the area the same opportunities as those elsewhere in the country.

"They have the same potential as any other citizen of this country has," Akbar said. "And I think we owe it to them that we provide them the opportunity to join the mainstream."

The army is overseeing the rebuilding to schools demolished by the Taliban and building schools for the first time in some areas, including for girls. The military established the Waziristan Institute for Technical Education -- a vocational school to train young men who missed their early education during Taliban rule. 

And the army is restoring water supplies and electrical systems and funding what they call "livelihood projects," training and empowering local small businesses in everything from honey bee farming and fruit orchards, to auto repair and transport services.

"The strategy that the Pakistan army has adopted is a people-centric strategy," Hayat said. "So the more areas you've able to clear, the more infrastructure you're able to build, the more people you are able to bring back and sustain. Provide them economic opportunities. That is the measure of success."   

Ideal habitat for Taliban
Frontline commanders all say the battle for Waziristan will not be won with hearts and minds alone. Security operations continue, gradually increasing what they call their "elbow space" in the region.

Both North and South Waziristan feature snow-capped peaks, deep valleys, hidden caverns, and daunting mountain ranges which provide natural cover. It's the ideal habitat for the Taliban and other groups seeking refuge and covert routes for travel between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Atop a 6,000-foot high post in South Waziristan, Brig. Hassan Azhar Hayat said despite securing the area, the struggle to hold it against "pockets of resistance" is constant. His troops, he says, still carry out targeted operations on an almost daily basis.

"That's why the military's presence is so important here right now in this area, that we keep increasing our perimeter of security," Hayat said. "This is guerrilla warfare. It cannot happen that you're able to eliminate the complete Taliban in any form. So it is different warfare altogether."

North Waziristan remains the only one of the seven tribal agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in which the Pakistan military has not launched a significant military operation.

Despite public pressure from the U.S. to act, Pakistani commanders there cite the complexity of the region, the politicized nature of the debate, as well as the increasing stakes of the approaching 2014 drawdown of troops across the border as critical to their operation's timeline.

Maj. Gen. Ali Abbas, the commanding officer of the 7th Infantry Division of the Pakistan Army, currently stationed in North Waziristan, said his region must be considered separately because of the number of influences at play. However, 40,000 troops are stationed in North Waziristan, which shares a 113-mile border with Afghanistan, 

"North Waziristan is not like any other agency in Pakistan," Abbas said. "It's very different. It's very complex."

Despite the territory won and economic investments made, there is concern within the local community about a backslide to the time of Taliban rule. Khan, the tribal elder, doesn't want the army to leave until the entire area has been won and a civilian administration has taken over control. Army commanders say their commitment is clear.

"The army will stay here as long as the army is desired by the local people to stay here, and mandated by the government of Pakistan to stay here," Hayat said. "We're here for the long haul. This is our backyard. We cannot ignore it."

Communities in South Waziristan have been slow to return to the region after the end of military operations. In some sections, crumbling homes and untended stretches of land dot the landscape. Small clusters of mud-walled homes sit empty. Army commanders hope as word of their development efforts spreads, more of those who fled the fighting will return. They are taking, they say, a very long view.

"If we really want to change this area, the approach is to do it over one generation," Bajwa added. "Look at the next 10 years. If we put a child in the school now, and 10 years on, we bring him out of the school, we put him into a college, I think we have done our job."

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This story was originally published on Mon Mar 4, 2013 5:00 AM EST

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban insurgents poisoned, then shot and killed 17 people as they slept at a local police post in eastern Afghanistan, one of two attacks in as many days targeting Afghan security forces, an official said Wednesday.

It's unclear how the militants were able to drug people inside the post before firing bullets into their incapacitated bodies Tuesday night, said Abdul Jamhe Jamhe, a government official in Ghazni province.

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Ten members of the Afghan Local Police, a village-level defense force backed by the U.S. military and Afghan government, and seven of their civilian friends died in the attack, said Provincial Gov. Musa Khan Akbarzada. He said there was a conspiracy of some sort but declined to confirm if poison was involved.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in Andar district. He told The Associated Press by telephone that the attackers fatally shot the men in their sleep, but denied they had been poisoned.

Residents of Andar took up arms last spring and chased out insurgents. The villagers don't readily embrace any outside authority, be it the Taliban, the Afghan government or the U.S.-led NATO military coalition.

The lightly trained village defense force, which is overseen by the Interior Ministry, is tasked with helping bring security to remote areas. But President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern that without careful vetting, the program could end up arming local troublemakers, strongmen or criminals.

In other violence, a suicide bomber slid under a bus full of Afghan soldiers and blew himself up in Kabul, wounding 10 in an attack that underscored the insurgency's ability to attack in the heavily guarded capital. Kabul police said at least six soldiers and four civilians were wounded. The suicide attacker died.

The bomber, wearing a black overcoat, approached the bus purposefully in heavy morning snow as soldiers were boarding, set down his umbrella and went under the chassis as if to fix something, according to a witness. Watching from across the street, office worker Ahmad Shakib said he thought for a moment the man might have been a mechanic.

"I thought to myself, what is this crazy man doing? And then there was a blast and flames," that engulfed the undercarriage, he said. "It was a very loud explosion. I still cannot really hear."

Bakery owner Mirza Khan said the blast shattered the windows of his nearby shop where people were waiting to buy bread, leaving six wounded.

The Afghan government uses buses to ferry soldiers, police and office workers into the city center on regular routes for work, and the vehicles have been a common target for insurgents.

Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, also claimed responsibility for the Kabul bombing.

The attack occurred three days after a would-be car bomber was shot dead by police in downtown Kabul. That assailant was driving a vehicle packed with explosives and officials said he appeared to be targeting an intelligence agency office.

It also comes as the U.S.-led military coalition in the country is backing off from its claim that Taliban attacks dropped in 2012, tacitly acknowledging a hole in its widely repeated argument that violence is easing and that the insurgency is in steep decline.

Some 100,000 international troops are helping secure Afghanistan at the moment, but most, including many of the 66,000 Americans, are expected to finish their withdrawal by the end of 2014.

Also on Wednesday, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss abuse allegations against American special forces and Afghan troops linked to them in the strategic eastern Wardak province.

The allegations led Karzai to issue an order on Sunday calling for U.S. special forces to be expelled from the province within two weeks despite fears that the move would leave the restive area and the neighboring Afghan capital more vulnerable to al-Qaida and other insurgents.

Karzai and Gen. Joseph Dunford, commander of all U.S. and allied forces, discussed the issue and agreed to work together to address the security concerns of the people of Wardak, a coalition statement said.

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KABUL, Afghanistan — A woman is raped. Instead going after her attacker, the law and society imprison the victim.

This is often the reality in Afghanistan. To bring attention to the issue, Afghan-American actress Fereshta Kazemi took the role of a rape victim in a recent film, "The Icy Sun."

"The concept of honor for the men rests on a woman’s shoulders," said Kazemi, 33. "Her brothers and her family feel that they have been raped of their honor."

---

This perception of honor means that society often blames the women who are attacked, she says.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has ordered that all U.S. special forces must leave Wardak province, just west of Kabul, within two weeks — citing allegations of disappearances and torture.

In a statement Sunday, a spokesman for Karzai said, "after a thorough discussion, it became clear that armed individuals named as U.S. special force stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people."

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Karzai's office cited a "recent example" in which nine people allegedly "disappeared" and a separate incident where a student was taken from his home in the middle of the night and whose tortured body was found two days later under a bridge with his throat cut.

U.S. defense officials strongly deny that military personnel condoned, or were involved in, any kidnappings, torture or murders of Afghan civilians or suspects.

In addition to demanding the U.S. pull out in two weeks, Karzai also demanded the immediate cessation of all international special forces operations in Wardak.

Military officials told NBC News that Karzai's order came as a total surprise. The province is one of the hottest combat zones in Afghanistan and is a strategically important area because it is seen as the gateway the Taliban uses to carry out attacks in Kabul, the war-torn nation's capital.

In response, International Security Assistance Force, which coordinates the multinational coalition in Afghanistan, said "the U.S. Forces Afghanistan is aware of the reporting of presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi's comments today. We take all allegations of misconduct seriously and go to great lengths to determine the facts surrounding them."

The ISAF declined to comment further until they've "had a chance to speak with" senior officials in the Afghan government.

In their statement, the Afghan government noted that "Americans reject having conducted any such operation," but also noted "that such actions have caused local public resentment and hatred."

President Barack Obama announced during his State of the Union address earlier this month that 34,000 American troops --  about half of the total U.S. force in Afghanistan -- will leave the country by the end of this year.

NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube contributed to this report

President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to celebrated Army veteran Clinton Romesha on Monday afternoon, making the former active duty staff sergeant just the fourth living person to receive the military’s highest honor for service in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Romesha, 31, fought back tears as Obama presented him with the medal honoring his “conspicuous gallantry” during the Battle of Kamdesh, a day-long firefight at a remote Afghan outpost near the Pakistan border in 2009.

“These men were outnumbered, outgunned, and almost overrun,” Obama said in his remarks in the White House East Room. 

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Romesha was recognized for leading the charge against hundreds of Taliban fighters during an Oct. 3, 2009, siege on U.S. troops at Combat Outpost Keating, a small compound military officials considered indefensible. 

Eight American soldiers were killed and 20 were wounded in the surprise attack, making it the deadliest day for the U.S. in the war effort that year.

Romesha headed up efforts to retake the camp, risking his own life as U.S. troops were besieged by rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, mortars and rifles.

Romesha, who served twice in Iraq, first took out a machine-gun team and then turned to a second, suffering shrapnel wounds when a grenade struck a generator he was using for cover.

An official citation read at the ceremony described Romesha’s subsequent acts of valor.

"Undeterred by his injuries, Staff Sergeant Romesha continued to fight and upon the arrival of another soldier to aid him and the assistant gunner, he again rushed through the exposed avenue to assemble additional soldiers," the citation says.

“With complete disregard for his own safety, (he) continually exposed himself to heavy enemy fire as he moved confidently about the battlefield engaging and destroying multiple enemy targets.”

Previously reported: "He's always been a good kid." 

All the while, Romesha devised a strategy to secure key points of the battlefield and directed air support to eliminate a band of thirty heavily armed enemy combatants.

Romesha and his team also provided cover so three injured soldiers could make their way to an aid station. They then “pushed forward 100 meters under withering fire to recover the bodies of their fallen comrades,” according to the citation.

Romesha, a father of three and the son of a Vietnam veteran, reportedly never lost his composure during the chaotic attack, according to CNN journalist Jake Tapper, who chronicled the battle in the 2012 book "The Outpost."

'Clint is a pretty humble guy'
During his remarks, Obama recognized the lives of the eight soldiers who died at the Battle of Kamdesh, asking the parents of the fallen seated in the back of the room to stand for applause. 

But the heart of Obama's speech centered on a visibly emotional Romesha, who appeared to be fighting back tears as he looked ahead at his wife, Tammy, and three young children.

"Clint is a pretty humble guy," Obama said. "The thing he looks forward to the most is just being a husband and a father."

Romesha is slated to be a guest of first lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address on Tuesday, CNN reported.

At a January news conference shortly after Obama called to inform him that he would receive the Medal of Honor, Romesha put the attention squarely on wounded friends and fallen comrades.

"I've had buddies that have lost eyesight and lost limbs," Romesha said. "I would rather give them all the credit they deserve for sacrificing so much. For me it was nothing, really. I got a little peppered, that was it."

Romesha, whom Tapper describes in his book as "an intense guy, short and wiry," lives in Minot, N.D., and works at KS Industries, an oil field construction firm.

A total of ten U.S. service members have been awarded the military's highest honor for actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, including six men who received the honor posthumously. 

The Medal of Honor is bestowed on members of the U.S. Armed Forces who display what the Army calls "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty."