Video: Marine Corps Times interviews Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor recipient
August 19th, 2011 | Awards Ganjgal | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Dakota Meyer on his grandparents' farm in Greensburg, Ky., on Aug. 16. (Photo by Chris Maddaloni/Staff)
GREENSBURG, Ky. — It has been a long journey.
Dakota Meyer will receive the Medal of Honor on Sept. 15, two years after he braved enemy fire multiple times in Afghanistan in attempt to save fellow U.S. service members in Ganjgal, Afghanistan. He made it out of the valley alive, and they didn’t. It’s a tough situation to digest.
Marine Corps Times readers know the story well by now — various aspects of it have led me to write three cover stories since early last year, including a profile on Meyer.
With the White House announcement now official, however, I made my way down to Meyer’s hometown this week with staff photographer Chris Maddaloni.
We met him at his grandparents’ farm Tuesday in this rural town of 2,500 people, sitting in their living room to discuss the battle, its aftermath and how he handles all the attention. An excerpt of the interview is available here:
We’ll have a lot more in next week’s print edition of Marine Corps Times, but I thought it was worth sharing some personal observations here.
Meyer has taken the time to do at least 20 interviews since the White House’s announcement — a heavy workload that must be both monotonous and exhausting. Still, he sits dutifully, answering questions from reporters — some of whom clearly haven’t done their research and ask dumb questions, based on a quick Google search.
Meyer still loves to crack jokes, and clearly has a great relationship with his grandparents, Dwight and Jean Meyer. Married 58 years, they’re planning to fly to Washington for the ceremony. They proudly shared their recollection of the Korean War, which Dwight served in as a Marine. His haircut is still squared away, snow-white hair and all.
Setting the record straight on Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor recipient-to-be
July 26th, 2011 | Awards Ganjgal Leadership | Posted by Dan Lamothe
Dakota Meyer, photographed at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., in November. (Photo by Rob Curtis/Staff)
With the dust starting to settle, it’s time to set the record straight about Dakota Meyer, who will become the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor in decades.
As someone who has covered the fallout of the Sept. 8, 2009, ambush in Gangjal, Afghanistan, since days after it occurred, I’ve noticed a variety of inaccuracies work their way into stories about the incident, Meyer’s service and the Medal of Honor process. Many of them cite my story last week that confirmed the award decision had been made, so it seems fair for to correct the record.
Let’s look at a few inaccuracies:
Meyer will be the first living Marine in 41 years to receive the Medal of Honor.
That’s a falsehood, and since it was reported by the Associated Press, it has been appeared in dozens, if not hundreds, of news accounts.
I reported last week that Meyer would be the first living Marine recipient of the award since now-retired Sgt. Maj. Allan Kellogg received the medal for actions for 41 years ago in Vietnam. I assume that’s where the 41-year figure comes from, but there’s nuance there that can’t be left out.
It’s true that Kellogg was honored for valor 41 years ago on March 11, 1970, but he received the medal from President Nixon at the White House on Oct 15, 1973. That means it has been about 38 years since the last living recipient received the Medal of Honor.
Meyer acted as a sniper in the battle.
Meyer was an infantry rifleman in the Corps, and trained as scout sniper, too. During the Battle of Ganjgal, however, he was serving as a member of an embedded training team, and never functioned as a sniper. There were snipers providing overwatch during the battle, but they were with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y.
On a related note, some media accounts said Meyer was in Afghanistan at the time with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines. As Marine Corps Times previously reported, Meyer was with 3/3 before his deployment in 2009, but volunteered for the training team assignment instead of deploying to Iraq for a second time.
Meyer currently lives in Austin, Texas.
I’ll take the heat for this one. In Marine Corps Times’ initial story posted last week, I reported that Meyer lived in Austin. Meyer shared that detail with me in April, but subsequently moved back to his hometown of Greensburg, Ky., a few months later. He couldn’t be reached for comment last week, but I have subsequently verified and corrected our initial story. The first report led to confusion for some Texas news outlets.
Meyer was a sergeant in the battle.
Some media outlets have reported that Meyer was a sergeant in the battle, while others say he was a corporal.
The truth is, he was a corporal at the time, and left active-duty service as one in June 2010. He has subsequently been promoted to sergeant while in the Individual Ready Reserve, an organization in which Marines can be called back to active-duty service, but rarely are. He wore sergeant’s stripes at the Marine Corps Birthday Ball last year.
Behind the Cover: An exclusive interview with Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor nominee
November 15th, 2010 | Afghanistan Behind the Cover Ganjgal | Posted by Dan Lamothe
By now, many Marine Corps Times readers have read the news that the service has recommended that a former Marine corporal receive the Medal of Honor for valor last year in eastern Afghanistan.
It’s a story that we first broke last Monday online, citing a Marine source with knowledge of the awards process. It was subsequently confirmed by other Marine sources last week.
The circumstances of the case should make it no surprise that former Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 22, is hesitant to discuss his actions.
As we first outlined in a cover story in July, he is credited with running into a kill zone on foot to find four missing Marines, who had been pinned down and under fire by insurgents for hours in an early-morning ambush on Sept. 8, 2009. He and a staff sergeant already had been turned back twice under heavy fire while trying to get to the Marines in a Humvee. After helicopter pilots said the fighting on the ground was too fierce to get to the pinned down team, Meyer went in alone, uncertain whether they were alive.
He found them dead and bloody in a ditch. Their weapons and radios were missing, and they had been stripped of their body armor, according to military documents obtained by Marine Corps Times.
For the first time since that ordeal, Meyer agreed last week to discuss how he has coped with the incident, what life is like for him now and how he remembers his friends, who gave the ultimate sacrifice. He is uncomfortable with the attention, but said if he can keep the memory of his fellow Marines alive, it’s worth it.
This is Dakota Meyer’s story, shared respectfully as he chooses to tell it now. A small portion of his time with Marine Corps Times was recorded here, while he visited friends at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., last week:
Behind the Cover: Tragedy and heroism in Ganjgal, Afghanistan
July 18th, 2010 | Afghanistan Behind the Cover Ganjgal Infantry | Posted by Dan Lamothe
It’s every Marine’s worst nightmare.
Your buddies are pinned down in a kill zone, taking fire from three sides. No help is on the way, and every time you try to assist them, you get turned back by the massive amount of firepower unleashed by the enemy.
Cpl. Dakota Meyer found himself in this very situation Sept. 8, 2009. Caught in a battle in Ganjgal, a remote village in eastern Afghanistan, he took matter into his own hands, braving a hail of enemy fire on foot to reach his buddies. Sadly, they were dead when he found them.
The battle, of course, made national news last year because troops on the ground were outraged they didn’t get the air and artillery support they needed despite pleading for it repeatedly. This week’s Marine Corps Times takes it a step farther, focusing on the bravery of Meyer and his fellow Marines, relying on dozens of jarring, first-person accounts provided by troops on the ground to Combined Joint Task Force 82, which investigated the attack after the fact. Meyer’s is among the most painful to process.
I wrote the cover story after poring through hundreds of pages of documents compiled as part of the investigation. The military has repeatedly refused to cough up the entire report, but I obtained a 300-plus page copy — already declassified, meaning it could have been released – after my own recent return from Afghanistan.
The story also focuses on details not published in a five-page summary report of the investigation in February, and how things turned so sideways on the battlefield.
An example: The three Army officers previously recommended for reprimand due to their negligence that day were with Task Force Chosin, which was based at Forward Operating Base Joyce in Kunar province and spearheaded by 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, out of Fort Drum, N.Y. The unit’s identity was redacted by the military in the summary.