Dakota Meyer was a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps when he saved the lives of 36 men in a place called Ganjgal Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar province just over two years ago. Oddly, he does not consider himself a hero.
Meyer’s country and commander in chief, while appreciating his becoming modesty, choose to disagree with that assessment. So now Sgt. Meyer of the Marine Corps Reserves received the Medal of Honor from the hands of President Obama in a White House ceremony. The previous day, the Marine and the president shared a beer.
In 2009, a forward team of American servicemen and Afghan military and police took fire from a Taliban ambush while entering a village to meet with tribal leaders. Fifty of the enemy poured fire on the advance party with rockets and machine guns.
Meyer, with another Marine driving, rushed forward in an armored Humvee in defiance of orders, firing a machine gun to rescue his comrades while under heavy fire. He made five trips, using three different Humvee, the first two having been shot up. The second two trips Meyer made while wounded in the arm with shrapnel. He took 36 living men, American and Afghan, as well as the bodies of four men to safety while killing eight of the enemy. He followed the code of leaving no man behind.
Ten men have been awarded the Medal of Honor for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, three of them while still living. Meyer is the first living Marine to have earned that award since the Vietnam War, about 40 or so years ago.
War is a unique horror that people inflict upon one another, sometimes for frivolous or even evil reasons, sometimes for the best of reasons. Wars can bring out the worst in men all too often.
But upon Afghanistan’s hills, fought and bled over for thousands of years, Meyer showed the best that men have to offer. Because of him, 36 men came home to their families and were not to die one late summer day among unfriendly strangers. Four men didn’t make it, but their remains were recovered so their loved ones could bury them.
So, with respect to his modesty, Dakota Meyer is a hero in the best tradition of the Corps. Semper fi.
Source: Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor Citation
Obama awards Medal of Honor to Kentucky Marine, Michael A. Memoli and Michael Muskal, LA Times, Sept. 15, 2011