This Mother's Day, his mom was getting ready for the big ceremony, wiping tears from her face as she talked about her hero.
"I'm proud of him," Penni Farias said of her son. "But God protected him."
She calls him Chris -- her 26-year-old son who still gets homesick. But most of the world knows him as Sgt. Christopher Farias, a decorated U.S. Marine who nearly died while serving in Afghanistan.
"I had to keep my promise, which was to bring my guys home," Sgt. Farias told us. "I promised my best friend's wife that I would get him home. I could hear him screaming and I knew I had to do something."
Sgt. Farias was knocked unconscious in a Taliban attack back in 2010.
He got up, led his fellow Marines out of danger and started fighting back.
He's now getting a Navy Cross. It is considered the U.S. Navy's highest honor and the second highest award given for valor in the entire U.S. military, ranking only below the Medal of Honor.
"I honestly was just really in shock. I mean, didn't think it was that big of a deal," Sgt. Farias said.
But his mother knew exactly what a big deal it was.
"He said it so nonchalantly," she said. "Like, 'oh, we got hit by a grenade.'"
The sergeant's father, Lawrence Farias, is also proud of their son.
"He did what he was trained to do," he said. "Because of that, a lot of his fellow Marines are alive and talking about that experience today."
The whole family is going to the Navy Cross ceremony in California this week.
Sgt. Farias has been in the military for eight years, serving four different tours overseas. He is currently an instructor at Camp Pendleton.
