The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Second Lieutenant Stephen K. Pawloski (MCSN: 0-10473), United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity while attached to the Eighth Marines, Reinforced, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands on December 20, 1942. While returning to their own lines from a completed reconnaissance patrol, Second Lieutenant Pawloski and two other men came suddenly under the fire of heavy rifles and machine guns. When one member of the patrol was wounded so severely he was unable to move, Second Lieutenant Pawloski, although he himself had been injured at the same time, disregarded his own condition to the extent of crawling back through a dangerously exposed area in order to remove the man to safety. His heroic spirit of self-sacrifice was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.