JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – After a week in which he was awarded the Medal of Honor at the White House and feted by the New York Mets and Broadway, Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry is eager to get back to his day job: taking care of wounded Special Forces members and their families at Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state.

But he knows he has a bigger role to play right now, he said Tuesday.

“People look at you different,” he said of the medal. “Your voice is heard a lot more, so if there’s things that are wrong, or concerns of the lower enlisted, I have an easier way into the ear of those who can change things. If I can influence other lives, my goal … is to help out the best I can.”

Petry, the second living Medal of Honor recipient from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, earned the award by grabbing an enemy grenade during a fight at a compound in eastern Afghanistan in 2008. As he tried to throw it, the grenade blew his hand off, but his actions saved his own life and the lives of two comrades.

The 31-year-old Santa Fe, N.M., native was also shot through both legs during the fight.

The first living, active-duty service member who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan to get the Medal of Honor was Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, who received the honor last fall for his actions chasing down the Taliban in Afghani-stan in 2007.

Petry, wearing the medal around his neck, spoke with reporters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle Tuesday.

He showed off his prosthetic hand, using it to make a fist and pick up a glass of water. He can remove the hand in favor of attachments that fit a golf club or a set of cutlery knives, and he takes it off every night and charges it like a cellphone.