Americans expected to travel in record numbers over July 4th weekend
CBSN
The COVID-19 vaccine has given Americans the freedom to travel and gather with loved ones again this Independence Day, driving air and road travel numbers up to levels unseen since the beginning of the pandemic.
Tamas Gyalay is among the 3.5 million travelers expected to pass through U.S. airports over the Fourth of July weekend, which will be the busiest travel period since the start of the pandemic. "You can video chat all you want, but you're missing a lot of social contact that way, so that's the thing I look most forward to. Reconnecting with loved ones," Gyalay told CBS News correspondent Dina Demetrius as he prepared to board a flight from Los Angeles.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.