# President presents Medal of Honor to Marine

/ Published Sept. 16, 2011

WASHINGTON (September 15, 2011) — President Barack Obama today draped the pale blue  ribbon suspending the Medal of Honor around the neck of Marine Corps  Sgt. Dakota L. Meyer, the first living Marine to receive the award for  actions in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“It’s  been said that where there is a brave man, in the thickest of the  fight, there is the post of honor,” the commander in chief said. “Today  we pay tribute to an American who placed himself in the thick of the  fight again, and again, and again.”

Obama said Meyer, who is now  23 and was just 21 that day in Afghanistan, is “one of the most  down-to-earth guys you will ever meet.”

When the president’s  staff called the young Marine so the commander in chief could officially  notify him of the medal, Obama said, Meyer was at work on his new  civilian job at a construction site.

“He felt he couldn’t take the call right then because, he said, ‘If I don’t work, I don’t get paid,’” Obama said.

“So we arranged to make sure he got the call during his lunch break,” the president added.

Obama then turned to the events of Sept. 8, 2009, the day Meyer earned  the medal as a corporal serving with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8,  Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar province, Afghanistan.

Just before dawn, a patrol of Afghan forces and their American  trainers, on foot and making their way through a narrow valley, was  planning to meet with a group of village elders, the president said.

“Suddenly, all over the valley, the lights go out – and that’s when it happens,” Obama said.

About a mile away, Meyer and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez could hear the ambush over the radio.

Gunfire poured from houses, the hillsides, and even the local school, Obama said.

Soon, the patrol was pinned down, taking ferocious fire from three  sides. “Men were being wounded and killed, and four Americans – Dakota’s  friends – were surrounded,” he said.

After asking four times to  go closer to the fight and help, and hearing each time that it was too  dangerous, the two Marines got inside a nearby Humvee and headed into  the fight, Rodriguez-Chavez at the wheel and Meyer manning the gun  turret.

“They were defying orders, but they were doing what they thought was right,” the president said.

On two solo trips into the ambush area, Meyer repeatedly got out of the  Humvee to help Afghan troops, many wounded, inside the vehicle and back  to safety.

“A third time they went back, insurgents running right up to the front of the Humvee, Dakota fighting them off,” Obama said.

This time, the men drove right up to the line of fire, and helped a group of wounded Americans battle their way to safety.

They then headed back on the fourth trip with Meyer wounded in the arm  and the vehicle riddled with bullets and shrapnel, the president said.

“Dakota later confessed, ‘I didn’t think I was going to die, I knew I  was.’ But still, they pushed on, finding the wounded [and] delivering  them to safety,” Obama said.

On the fifth trip, the two Marines  drove through fire “that seemed to come from every window, every  doorway, every alley,” he said.

Finally, the two reached the four Americans who had been surrounded.

“Dakota jumped out and he ran toward them, drawing all those enemy guns  toward himself; bullets kicking up the dirt all around him,” Obama  said.

Meyer and others who had joined him picked up the fallen  Marines and, “through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos,  carried them out one by one – because as Dakota says, that’s what you do  for a brother,” the commander in chief said.

“Dakota says he’ll  accept this medal in their name,” the president said. “So today, we  remember the husband who loved the outdoors, Lt. Michael Johnson; the  husband and father they called ‘Gunny J,’ Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson;  the determined Marine who fought to get on that team, Staff Sgt. Aaron  Kenefick; the medic who gave his life tending to his teammates,  Hospitalman 3rd Class James Layton; and a soldier wounded in that battle  who was never recovered: Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook.”

Obama said while he knows Meyer has thought of himself as a failure  because some of his teammates didn’t come home, “as your commander in  chief, and on behalf of everyone here today and all Americans, I want  you to know it’s quite the opposite.”

“Because of your honor, 36  men are alive today,” the president said. “Because of your courage, four  fallen American heroes came home, and in the words of James Layton’s  mom, [their families] could lay their sons to rest with dignity.” Meyer’s father, Mike, grandparents, and more than a hundred friends and family members attended today’s ceremony.

Because of Meyer’s humble example, children all across America will  know that “no matter who you are or where you come from, you can do  great things as a citizen and a member of the American family,” the  president said.

The commander in chief then asked  Rodriguez-Chavez, now a gunnery sergeant, and all those present at the  ceremony who served with Meyer, to stand “and accept the thanks of a  grateful nation.”

Meyer joined in the applause.

Just  before the citation reading and medal presentation, Obama said, “Every  member of our team is as important as the other – that’s a lesson that  we all have to remember, as citizens and as a nation, as we meet the  tests of our time here at home and around the world. To our Marines, to  all our men and women in uniform, to our fellow Americans, let us always  be faithful.”

Meyer, who has left the active Marine Corps, and  is a sergeant in the Inactive Reserve, is the 298th Marine ever to have  received the medal, created during the Civil War. The nation’s highest  military honor, the Medal of Honor is awarded for risk of life in combat  beyond the call of duty.

Meyer is the third living service  member to receive the Medal of Honor for actions during the Iraq and  Afghanistan wars, following Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore A. Giunta, who  received the medal Nov. 16, 2010, and Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry,  who accepted the award July 12.

Of ten Medal of Honor recipients  for actions during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, the only other Marine  is Cpl. Jason E. Dunham, who died April 22, 2004, of wounds received  when he covered a live grenade with his own body to save the lives of  fellow Marines in Iraq. Dunham’s parents accepted his posthumous Medal  of Honor Jan. 11, 2007.