UPDATE 2:
The Austin American-Statesman reports that Medal of Honor nominee Dakota Meyer moved back from Austin to his home state of Kentucky in May.
According to the Statesman, Meyer worked in Austin for a defense contractor from March to May.
The Marine Corps Times had reported earlier that Meyer “now lives in Austin, Texas.”
Regardless, whether Meyer lived in Austin one day or three months—or never—we are very proud of him.
UPDATE:
In a follow-up to this morning’s first news on Dakota Meyer’s pending Medal of Honor presentation, Meyer’s hometown newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, had some additional information. Parts of it:
Felicia Gilliam didn’t know her son was selected as a Medal of Honor recipient — the first living Marine to receive the nation’s highest award for valor in 41 years —- until reporters called her Kentucky home Wednesday morning.
President Obama had called Dakota Meyer on Monday to tell him the news, she said.
That’s Meyer: an adventure-seeking but humble 23-year-old who doesn’t brag about his accomplishments, she said.
“He’s very humble about it,” said Gilliam, 42, whose son moved to Austin when he left the military last year to work for a private employer here. “He doesn’t see himself as a hero. This isn’t for him. It’s for the men that died that day, his friends.”
Referring to Meyer’s Marine comrades and his actions that earned him the Medal, she said, “He was very close to them…These men live, eat and sleep together and they become very close.”
And:
Meyer, originally from Greensburg, Ky., signed up in 2006 for the Marines out of Green County High School, where he played football and was selected to play in the Pigskin Classic all-star high school football game. He was drawn to the Marines thanks to his appetite for adventure, Gilliam said.
“Dakota has been the adventure-seeker and the military offered him everything he wanted and it would give him goals and skill and an opportunity to serve his country,” she said. “I think he chose the Marines because they were the biggest and the baddest.”
Growing up, he enjoyed four-wheeling, skydiving and rock-climbing, she said.
He was later based in Hawaii for the Marines and stayed until he left in June 2010 to work for a weapons developer in Austin, Gilliam said.
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[Original article]:
Continuing what I would call a healthy, patriotic trend, President Obama will award yet another Medal of Honor to a living recipient for valor in combat in Afghanistan.
Dakota Meyer, a former Marine Corps corporal, will be the first living Marine Corps recipient of our nation’s highest award for valor “since now-retired Sgt. Maj. Allan Kellogg received the medal for actions 41 years ago in Vietnam;” he will be the second Marine to receive the high honor for actions in the Afghanistan-Iraq conflicts; Meyer will be the third living recipient of the award for actions in those two conflicts following the award of the Medal to Army Ranger Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry a week ago and he will be the fifth service member to receive that recognition for heroism in the Afghanistan War from President Obama.
According to the Marine Corps Times, Meyer, on Sept 8, 2009,
…charged into a kill zone on foot and alone to find three missing Marines and a Navy corpsman, who had been pinned down under intense enemy fire in Ganjgal, a remote village near the Pakistan border in violent Kunar province.
Already wounded by shrapnel, Meyer found them dead and stripped of their gear and weapons, and helped carry them from the kill zone, according to military documents obtained by Marine Corps Times.
Other service members involved in the Ganjgal battle have received valor awards that include the Navy Cross to two surviving Marines, the Bronze Star with “V” for valor to another surviving Marine and to the three Marines and one Navy Corpsman whom Meyer helped recover.
The battle—the ambush—at Ganjgal brings back painful memories and controversial accounts as four U.S. Marines died that day, another died from his wounds a month later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in addition to an Afghan interpreter and at least eight Afghan security forces.
A subsequent Army investigation reported that “’negligent leadership’ contributed ‘directly to the loss of life’ on the battlefield that day by refusing repeated pleas for artillery support from U.S. forces on the ground and failing to notify higher commands that they had troops in trouble. Three unidentified officers were recommended for letters of reprimand, and Army officials later said they were delivered to two of them.”
It is not known yet when Dakota Meyer will receive the Medal of Honor.
I am proud to mention that Dakota Meyer now lives in my hometown, Austin, Texas.
Read more about the heroism of these military here.
Photo: U.S. Marine Corps
