The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant Rinaldo Martini (MCSN: 306732), United States Marine Corps, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity while serving as a Machine Gun Section Leader of Company C, First Battalion, Twenty-seventh Marines, FIFTH Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Islands, 19 February 1945. Acting on his own initiative when his company was halted in its advance by an enemy blockhouse, Sergeant Martini took his machine gun and worked his way forward to a shell hole in front of the hostile emplacement. Standing up and firing from his hip, he managed to pin down the Japanese occupants until a demolitions man could move forward and destroy it. His courageous devotion to duty was in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.