As a former Marine I often wonder how many of us realize how very few Medal of Honor awards have been bestowed upon a Marine? I like to think it’s because all Marine’s carry a high level of duty to others, and while Sgt. Meyer’s actions are honorable are far from unique to those band of brothers.
Thank you Sergeant, and a humble congratulations. I am sure your fellow brothers are equally thankful and proud.
Medal of Honor recipient highlights Marine’s valor as well as risks US troops faced under controversial rules of engagement
On Thursday, President Obama will award the Medal of Honor to Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer.
Meyer will become the third living recipient–and first Marine–to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan, the White House said. He is also the first living former Marine to receive the highest U.S. military honor since the Vietnam war, a Marine Corps press officer told The Envoy Wednesday.
The heroic conduct Meyer displayed in retrieving the bodies of four fellow Marines killed in battle occurred during a September 2009 battle in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. The rules of engagement for the conflict have caused controversy and some bitterness.
Meyer was serving as a member of a Marine Corps training team embedded with Afghan National Army forces in Gangjal, Afghanistan on September 8, 2009.
"A full moon was drenching the mountains in ghostly light as some 60 Afghan soldiers, 20 border police officers, 13 Marine and U.S. Army trainers and I set out for Ganjgal at 3 a.m. from the U.S. base in the Shakani District," McClatchy national security reporter Jonathan Landay, who was embedded with the unit at the time, reported in September 2009.
As the team came under insurgent fire and rocket attack, however, U.S. commanders repeatedly denied the request to provide air cover, under new rules of engagement designed to reduce civilian casualties.
"U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village," Landay reported. "We waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away."
By the time helicopters arrived, four U.S. Marines had been killed, as well as eight Afghan troops and the US Marine commander’s Afghan interpreter.
"The Marines were cut down as they sought cover in a trench at the base of the village’s first layer cake-style stone house," Landay reported. "One Marine was bending over a second, tending his wounds, when both were killed, said Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 21, of Greensburg, Ky., who retrieved their bodies."
Meyer, born in 1986, retired from the Marines in June 2010, and now lives in Kentucky.
The last living former Marine to receive the Medal of Honor was in 1973: "Now-retired [Marine] Sgt. Maj. Allan Kellogg . . . received the Medal from President Nixon at the White House on Oct 15, 1973," Military Times’ Dan Lamothe reported.
