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. 

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.

Slideshow: Medal of Honor recipients

/

A look at heroes from a post-9/11 era of war

Launch slideshow

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."

Story updated 8:35 a.m. ET:

A senior Pakistani official told NBC News the United States' decision to cut aid to Pakistan would only contribute to the growing sense of anti-Americanism within the population.

He said the cut would deepen the perception within Pakistan that U.S. interests extend so far as its own foreign policy goals and would "strengthen our resolve to formalize and renegotiate our terms of engagement with USA."

Following the NATO crossborder strike on November 26 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, military and government officials in Pakistan have called for a reassessment of the relationship with the U.S.

The Army Chief issued new rules of engagement for his ground troops and commanders, granting them "full liberty" to respond with force if ever under attack, without any form of higher clearance.

Story published 5:35 a.m. ET:

ISLAMABAD - The United States has frozen $700 million in aid to Pakistan until it gets assurances that Islamabad is helping fight the spread of homemade bombs, a move likely to further strain ties between the countries.

A Congressional panel halted the payment to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country that is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, late on Monday as part of a wider review of defense spending.

Calls are growing in the U.S. to penalize Islamabad for failing to act against militant groups and, at worst, helping them, after the secret U.S. raid on a Pakistan garrison town in which al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in May.

Homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), are among militants' most effective weapons against U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan as they struggle to fight a resurgent Taliban insurgency.

Many are made using ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer smuggled across the border from Pakistan.

The freeze on U.S. aid was agreed as part of a defense bill that is expected to be passed this week.

The U.S. wants "assurances that Pakistan is countering improvised explosive devices in their country that are targeting our coalition forces," Representative Howard McKeon, a House Republican, told reporters.

The U.S. has allocated some $20 billion in security and economic aid to Pakistan since 2001, much of it in the form of reimbursements for assistance in fighting militants.

• Slideshow: Pakistan in turmoil

Although the frozen $700 million is only a small portion of aid to Pakistan, it could presage even greater cuts.

Harm to Pakistan-US relations
Salim Saifullah, chairman of Pakistan's Senate foreign relations committee, warned that relations, which are already at a low point, could worsen further following the decision, by the U.S. House-Senate panel.

"I don't think this is a wise move. It could hurt ties. There should instead be efforts to increase cooperation. I don't see any good coming out of this," Saifullah told Reuters.

There have been many proposals to make U.S. aid to Pakistan conditional on more cooperation in fighting militants such as the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network, which Washington believes operates out of Pakistan and battles U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But Pakistan's civilian leaders have in the past warned against aid cuts, saying it would only harden public opinion against the U.S.

Pakistan says it is doing all it can to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban and has lost thousands of soldiers since it joined the U.S.-led war in 2001, some of them at the hands of coalition troops.

Islamabad has accused NATO of deliberately killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in an air strike near the Afghan border last month and shut down supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan in anger.

The decision to freeze aid could prompt Pakistan to harden its stance toward Washington.

"I think the Pakistan side will understand the type of signal that is coming, which shows it's not only a question of aid," said former general and security analyst Talat Masood.

"The whole attitude of the U.S. and the relationship will be affected by these measures because they know Pakistan will not be in a position to control the smuggling."

• US meets deadline to vacate Pakistan air base

Two fertilizer factories
U.S. lawmakers said many Afghan bombs are made with fertilizer smuggled by militants across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

"The vast majority of the material used to make improvised explosive devices used against U.S. forces in Afghanistan originates from two fertilizer factories inside Pakistan," Republican Senator John McCain said in the Senate last week.

A Congressional Research Service report in October said the Pakistani factories, owned by one of the country's biggest companies, Pakarab, have been producing over 300,000 metric tons of ammonium nitrate per year since 2004.

The United States has urged Pakistan to regulate the distribution of ammonium nitrate to Afghanistan strictly. So far, Pakistan has only produced draft legislation on the issue.

Pakistan's fragile economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, so cutting down on fertilizer output would hurt the sector.

The provision freezing $700 million in aid was agreed upon by leaders of the armed services committees from both parties in the House and Senate, including McCain. It is part of compromise legislation authorizing U.S. defense programs expected to be approved this week, McKeon said.

The bill would also require the Pentagon to deliver a strategy for improving the effectiveness of U.S. aid to Pakistan, he said.

NBC News and Reuters contributed to this report.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Messages deleted by tabloid journalists? Not so fast
• NJ basketball tycoon launches Russia presidency bid
• (Some) Syrians head to the polls
• Last flight out: US vacates Pakistan base
• Two-legged swine hams it up in China
• Nurse who saved hundreds of US soldiers in WWII finally honored