Not too long ago there was a picture of Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta receiving the Medal of Honor from President Obama.

There are not very many recipients of the nation’s highest award for valor.

Especially a living person, as most of these awards are given posthumously.

The president said that nearly 40 years had passed since a recipient of the Medal of Honor was given to a living person.

My wife and I were given the honor of meeting a living Medal of Honor winner some years ago under dire conditions.

We were visiting our son at Fort Gordon, Ga., and we had an accident.

Peg was taken to the Humana Hospital to check her over.

It was not long when our son’s Sgt. Frantz came to the hospital with Barry to see how bad Peg was hurt.

Sgt. Frantz said if we needed anything, he was there to help.

It was later we found out he was a living Medal of Honor recipient.

I guess when the officer who was in charge of Fort Gordon went to other Army camps on business, he took Sgt. Frantz with him as he was so proud to have him under his command.

I guess if the sergeant had his medal on, he had to be saluted — even by generals.

I assume our son’s Sgt. Frantz has passed on, according to what the president said in the article.

Seeing my old neighborhood friend’s picture of Flip Springsteen in the paper, wearing his No. 36 football jersey, and the heading above it brought back memories to me of when I was a 10-year-old boy.

The story and the picture was of Flip’s 101-yard touchdown in 1940 in a win against St. Joseph.

I was there at that game, as I was the ball guy.

Yes, I carried the big canvas bag of footballs from the locker room at the high school down to Alumni Field and back.

I was a lucky kid back then, as I got to go down in the locker room with the players, plus I got to see the game free.

If I’m not mistaken, Bob Barton once told me it was him who caused the St. Joe player to fumble the ball.

In looking back, I wrote about Flip’s run in the 16th article I wrote for the paper on Dec. 4, 1990.

It’s funny how an 80 1/2 year old man can remember clearly when he was just 10 years old at the time.

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City. E-mail him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.