Sgt. Dakota Louis Meyer is a Marine Corps veteran who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his outstanding performance in saving the lives of his counterparts from an ambush in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan. Meyer was born on June 28, 1988, in Columbia, Kentucky, and joined the Marine Corps in 2006 after graduating high school. He completed his basic training at Parris Island Recruit Training Depot. Trained as a sniper, Meyer was regarded as a highly skilled Marine infantryman by his fellow trainees.

Meyer was first deployed in Iraq in 2007 and subsequently to Afghanistan in the summer of 2009 as part of the Embedded Training Team 2-8. The ETT 2-8 consisted of 21 Marines who were divided into small groups across 5 combat outposts in northeastern Afghanistan. Meyer and three other team members were stationed at Combat Outpost Monti, located along the Kunar River, where they were tasked to give weaponry, operational, and tactical training to Afghan soldiers. Combat Outpost Monti was part of the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Joyce, which was the headquarters for the 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

In early September 2009, the team at Combat Outpost Monti received orders to go to FOB Joyce, located 10 miles north. Meyer, his fellow Marines, and their Afghan trainees arrived at FOB Joyce on September 7 to participate in a security mission in Ganjgal village. The mission was nicknamed the Dancing Goat II, and it was aimed to meet with the village elders and conduct a search for firearms.  Ganjgal’s village elders were ready to renounce the Taliban and allege their support for the US-backed government in Afghanistan. Including Meyer, 15 American and 80 Afghan soldiers headed toward Ganjgal using Humvees and military pickup trucks on the morning of September 8^th. Shortly before dawn, the combined forces of Americans and Afghans got off their vehicles and continued toward Ganjgal on foot. Meyer was ordered to stay at the rally point with the vehicles along with another Marine named Juan Rodriguez-Chavez and several Afghan soldiers. Meyer and his team at the rally point were told to act as a support force and furnish covering fire using a Humvee in the event of a Taliban attack.

At around 5:30 am, a group of 70 to 100 Taliban insurgents ambushed the column of American and Afghan forces as they were entering the village. The insurgents attacked from multiple directions in the east and got the Marines and their Afghan allies under heavy AK47, machine gun, and grenade launcher fire. The American and Afghan forces scattered in different directions in search of cover. The Monti team, at the head of the column, found cover inside the compound of the nearest house in the village. Other Afghan and American soldiers took cover behind stone terraces on the outskirt of the village. Despite many calls for air support, the forces were denied air strikes fearing civilian casualty because of their proximity to the village. The Monti team, which included three of Meyer’s close comrades and an Afghan interpreter, were killed in action by the insurgents after being outgunned. The remaining Afghan and American forces behind the stone terraces received severe causalities. Many were killed and wounded as they wanted to retreat.

Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez asked three times for permission to drive into the battlefield, rescue the wounded, and recover the bodies of those killed. However, they were denied permission every time they made contact. Eventually, the two Marines decided to go against the orders and rescue their teammates who were isolated on the battlefield. “We knew what we had to do, and we decided to just go in on our own,” said Meyer. The two got into a gun truck and headed toward the village. While Rodriguez-Chavez was driving, Meyer manned the M230 40 mm automatic grenade launcher. Responding to Rodriguez Chavez’s concerns about getting stranded in the kill zone, Meyer said, “I guess we’ll die with them.”  The two collected some Afghan soldiers and drove them back to the safety at the rally point. Once back, Mayer and Rodriguez-Chavez transferred into an armored Humvee, with Meyer getting hold of its M2 50-caliber machine gun. By manning the machine gun, Meyer inflicted numerous casualties on the enemy while also exposing himself to heavy enemy fire along the way. The two brought more wounded to safety the second time. On their third drive into the battle zone, they were joined by Afghan and American troops in four other Humvees. Meyer was shot in the arm on his third trip but went twice more into the kill zone to collect his team members.

The battle of Ganjgal lasted around six hours and caused four deaths and three wounded for the Americans, as well as nine deaths and nineteen wounded for the Afghan forces. During his five trips to the battlefield, Meyer killed 8 insurgents and wounded many more. He collected 12 who had been pinned down and helped 24 others to get to safety. His bold action at a crucial time saved the lives of many American and Afghan soldiers who would otherwise have been killed by the insurgents. His action also raised the morale of his team members to continue fighting until everyone was saved. “It’s more than just honor or obligation, it’s human nature, you know, like I said, it’s your family, your brothers, your Marines, and that’s what you do for a brother,” said Meyer referring to his fellow Marines.

Meyer left Afghanistan in June 2010 after his term of enlistment expired. Almost one year later, on July 18, 2011, he received a call from President Obama about his nomination to receive the highest valor award while at his new construction job. At his award ceremony, Obama jokingly recounted that Dakota told him, “If I don’t work, I don’t get paid,” asking the president to call him back during his lunch break. On September 15, 2011, At the age of 23, Meyer received his Medal of Honor and became one of the youngest and the first living Marine to have received the medal since 1973. In addition to the Medal of Honor, Dakota has also received a Purple Heart Medal, a Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and many other awards and medals for his extraordinary actions and achievements in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

After returning from Afghanistan, he initially moved to Austin, Texas, and later relocated back to his hometown Greensburg. Mayer is currently an entrepreneur and motivational speaker. He has built multiple successful businesses, including Dash Strategies, which is focused on public solutions, government services, private partnerships, and community issues. He is the father of two daughters and an active community member in his hometown. Responding to the question of whether he considers himself a hero, Meyer once said: 

Do you call every other Marine, soldier, or anyone else who served their country a hero? if you are not gonna call them heroes for the same reason you are calling me a hero, then don’t do it.”

Medal of Honor Citation: https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/dakota-l-meyer

Corporal Meyer maintained security at a patrol rally point while other members of his team moved on foot with two platoons of Afghan National Army and Border Police into the village of Ganjgal for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders. Moving into the village, the patrol was ambushed by more than 50 enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from houses and fortified positions on the slopes above. Hearing over the radio that four U.S. team members were cut off, Corporal Meyer seized the initiative. With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner’s position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area. During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. When one machine gun became inoperable, he directed a return to the rally point to switch to another gun-truck for a third trip into the ambush area where his accurate fire directly supported the remaining U.S. personnel and Afghan soldiers fighting their way out of the ambush. Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Corporal Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members. Still under heavy enemy fire, he dismounted the vehicle on the fifth trip and moved on foot to locate and recover the bodies of his team members. Corporal Meyer’s daring initiative and bold fighting spirit throughout the 6-hour battle significantly disrupted the enemy’s attack and inspired the members of the combined force to fight on. His unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades in the face of almost certain death reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

References

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