Dakota Meyer is a Columbia, Ky., native, the son of Felicia Gilliam and Mike Meyer. He grew up on his father’s rural Green County farm and in his youth developed a love for fishing, hunting, and all things outdoors. He was a great high school football player known for his team spirit and competitive instincts.
He graduated from high school in 2006, and wanting to honor his Marine Corps veteran grandfather, he joined the USMC. When asked about his plans in his first encounter with a Marine recruiting sergeant before graduation, Dakota replied, “I’m going to go to college and play college football.” The crafty recruiter replied that that was a good plan because he would never make it as a Marine! Of course, Dakota signed up that day.
After boot camp at the MCRD Parris Island, he was deployed to Fallujah during Operation Iraqi Freedom as a scout sniper with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines.
But it was two years later, in September 2009, after deploying to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar Province, that then-Cpl Meyer would exhibit the courage and brotherhood that lead to actions on behalf of others at great peril to one’s own life.
After being advised that four members of his squad, three Marines and a Navy Corpsman, were missing after an ambush, Dakota entered the area where they were last known to be to search for them. Under enemy fire, he located his four brothers. 1stLt Michael Johnson, SSgt Aaron Kenefick, GySgt Wayne Johnson, and Navy HM3 James Layton were all deceased and stripped of their weapons, coms gear, and body armor. As he approached them, Dakota did not see a Taliban insurgent, who jumped Meyer. They wrestled to the ground and toiled until Dakota beat him to death with a rock.
With the help of allied Afghan soldiers, he then moved the four bodies of his friends to a location where they could be extracted — leave no man behind. (A fifth man he evacuated, Army SFC Kenneth Westbrook, would later die from his wounds.)
Then Dakota heard radio calls that the forward element of his combat team was under attack and pinned down by at least 50 Taliban insurgents. Meyer was denied permission to assist them four times until he defied orders and mounted a gun-truck driven by fellow Marine SSgt Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, and they drove into the midst of the firefight. Over the next six hours, and despite his own wounds, Dakota would lead four frontal attacks against the enemy fighters while covering his Marines’ exfil and recovering those who were wounded and KIA.
For his actions, he would become the first living Marine Medal of Honor recipient for actions in either OEF or OIF.
As noted in his Medal of Honor citation: “Corporal Meyer single-handedly turned the tide of the battle, saved 36 Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of his fallen brothers. Four separate times he fought the kilometer up into the heart of a deadly U-shaped ambush. During the fight he killed at least eight Taliban, personally evacuated 12 friendly wounded, and provided cover for another 24 Marines and soldiers to escape likely death at the hands of a numerically superior and determined foe.”
When Meyer was advised of his Medal of Honor nomination, he responded: “If they give it to me, it’s not for me. It’s for those guys and their families.” Now, when recognized for his service, he always makes clear that his Medal is for “those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”
Two other Marines on Meyers’s team, Cap. Ademola Fabayo and SSgt Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, received the Navy Cross (the second-highest award for valor) for their assistance in evacuating the bodies of the three Marines and Navy Corpsman.
His former platoon GySgt Hector Soto-Rodriguez said of Meyer: “He was the ideal Marine that you want working for you. He’s the type of guy that when the day was done and I’d go back to the barracks and brief the guys and leave them with their own time, he’d take his guys aside as a team leader and continue to teach them on his own time. He didn’t make it mandatory, but his Marines respected him. The guy was a magnet to his subordinates.”
As with too many combat Vets who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, Dakota attempted suicide a year after the Battle of Ganjgal. He sought successful treatment, though through the early years following his military service discharge in 2010, he had struggled in his personal and professional endeavors.
But he pulled himself up by his bootstraps and got his life together, devoting his energy to veteran advocacy in recent years.
He says: “You’ve got to be who you say you are and live by the standards you expect everybody else to live by. I had to look in the mirror and lay out who I wanted to be, then turn around and assess all my decisions and habits and decide if they were helping me get closer to who I needed to be.”
This week, Dakota reenlisted into the Marine Corps Reserve, joining three Army Medal of Honor recipients currently serving: SGM Thomas Payne, SGM Matthew Williams, and LTC William Swenson.
Reflecting on his decision to re-up, Meyer asked those now serving: “How could I ask them to continue to serve and sacrifice without doing it myself?”
He added: “People out there right now are looking for a place, they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They [want to] be part of the greater good. … There’s never been a better time to serve our country than right now. There’s never been a need, like we need right now, of good men and women who are willing to stand up and who are willing defend the beliefs of the American people, of the Constitution, and to protect all of those things against whatever enemy that is willing to try to step up and to try and threaten that.”
He was sworn in by SecDef Pete Hegseth, who said, even though Meyer did not want a public ceremony, that his return deserved recognition: “He’s not just signing up to sign up and be on a recruiting poster, he’s signing up to do the real thing, which again, is yet another testament to who he is and what he represents.”
Sgt Dakota Meyer: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.