The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Donald L. Sandburg (NSN: 8717551), United States Naval Reserve, for extraordinary heroism and conspicuous devotion to duty while serving as a Medical Corpsman with a Marine Infantry Battalion of the FIFTH Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces at Iwo Jima in the Volcano Islands, on 21 February 1945. Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Sandburg was advancing with an assault platoon to which he was attached as a Platoon Corpsman, across an area covered by a nearby enemy mortar barrage. When a call came for a Corpsman, without consideration for his own safety, he dashed across sixty yards of exposed terrain to a shell hole on the frontline containing two seriously wounded men, and immediately instituted first aid measures. Before these men could be evacuated, the enemy launched a counterattack against that part of the company front, and showered the front positions with hand grenades. During this counterattack Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Sandburg remained in the shell hole with the casualties, and when four successive hand grenades fell in the hole, he picked up each one in turn and threw them back at the enemy, thereby saving his patients from further injury. By his courage and efforts in behalf of others at great risk to his own life, Pharmacist’s Mate Second Class Sandburg undoubtedly saved many lives, and his steadfast devotion to duty throughout was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.