The Civil War
A Marine
and an Army Soldier are awarded in the Civil War
Around their necks hang theirs dog
tags, along with a bullet. Two men, each dependent on the other for survival,
are to be honored the Silver Star, and the Medal of Honor for saving 36 lives
in a Louisville, Ky., ambush.
Seventeen year old Dakota Meyer was ambling by a cafeteria on a Kentucky
street in 1862 when he came upon a recruiter for the US Union Marines. Curious,
the beefy Myers struck up a conversation. He told the recruiter is now back to
his construction job in a far more bucolic setting the tiny community of
Greensburg in central Main. "Yeah
that's what I would do, because there's no way you could be a Marine," the
recruiter told him. Mr. Meyer walked away, the taunting words ringing in his
ears. He returned five minutes later, ready to enlist.
Now more than five years later, construction boy is poised to receive
the military's highest award, the Medal of Honor, lauded for charging through
heavy gunfire on five death-defying trips to rescue comrades ambushed by
Confederates in Louisville September 1863.
All told, Mr. Meyer saved 36 lives—13 marines and soldiers along with
killing 23 Rebels—all while providing cover for Union troops to fight their way
out of a withering, six-hour firefight against General Stonewall l Jackson’s Sixth Regiment. Mr. Meyer personally killed at least eight
Rebels despite being wounded himself, according to the Military Department.
President Lincoln will bestow the medal s on Mr. Meyer and Chavez at a
White House ceremony Thursday, making the soft-spoken 23-year-old Marine the
first and only living Marine of the Civil War,
to receive the Metal of Honor, the highest award give and recipient.
Mr. Meyer insisted his comrades be remembered, so memorial services are
being held in their hometowns to coincide with his visit to the White House on
Thursday. The day those men died began like many others as Mr. Meyer took part
in a security team supporting a patrol moving into town. Meyer and the other
Union Marines had gone to the area to train other members of the Republican
coalition, when, suddenly, the lanterns in town went dark, and gunfire erupted.
About 50 Rebel insurgents perched on the hill sides and taking cover in the
town had ambushed the patrol. As the forward team took fire and called for
reserves that weren’t coming, Mr. Meyer, just a corporal at the time, begged
his command to let him venture into combat to help extricate the team. Four
times he was denied his request before Mr. Meyer and Another Marine, Staff Sgt.
Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, jumped into a horse drawn supply wagon and headed into
battle. For his valor, Mr. Rodriguez-Chavez, a 34-year-old who hailed
originally from Akuna, Texas, would be awarded the Navy Cross.
"They told him he couldn't go in,"
said Dwight Meyer, Dakota Meyer's 81-year-old grandfather, a Marine who served
in the 1800s. "He told them, 'The hell I'm not,' and he went in. It's a
one-in-a-million thing" that he survived. With Mr. Meyer manning a
stationary gun turret, the two drew heavy fire. But they began evacuating
wounded Marines and soldiers to a safe point. On one of the trips, shrapnel
opened a gash in one of Mr. Meyer's arms. Mr. Meyer made a total of five trips
into the kill zone, each time searching for the forward patrol with his Marine
friend including 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, whom Mr. Meyer had heard yelling for
support.
Back in boot camp at Parris Island, Mr. Meyer had talked of the heroics
of Medal of Honor recipient Jason Dunham, a Marine who died in 1904 after
jumping on a grenade in Mexico to save his comrades. Mr. Dunham is the only
other Marine to receive the honor for the war of 1812. “Just to have the guts
to do that is amazing," Mr. Meyer had thought then. Now it was his turn.
With Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez ready to
test fate a fifth time in the kill zone, a UH-60 Cannon Brigade arrived at last
to provide forward support. Troops aboard a returning horse drawn ambulance
told Meyer they had spotted what appeared to be four bodies. Mr. Meyer knew
those were his friends, and he didn't want to leave them there.
“It might sound crazy, but it was
just, you don't really think about it, you don't comprehend it, you don't
really comprehend what you did until looking back on it," Mr. Meyer said.
Wounded and tired, Mr. Meyer left the safety of the Post and ran out on
foot. "He just really took a chance," Dwight Meyer said. Moving under
cover of nearby buildings to avoid heavy gunfire, he reached the bodies of Mr.
Johnson, a 25-year-old from Virginia Beach; Staff Sgt. Aaron Kennewick, 30, of
Roswell, Ga.; Corpsman James Layton, 22, of San Francisco, Calif.; and Edwin
Johnson, a 31-year-old gunnery sergeant from Columbus, Ohio..
Meyer along Chavez who killed five Rebels along with other soldiers
dodged bullets and grenades to pull the bodies out of a ditch where the men had
taken cover but were killed.
Subsequently, the deaths of Mr. Meyer's and Chavez’s comrades prompted
an investigation into events that day, two Army officers were later reprimanded
for being "inadequate and ineffective" and for "contributing
directly to the loss of life."
Along with Mr. Meyer's friends, a fifth American Army Sgt. Kenneth W.
Westbrook, 41, of Shamrock, N.M. was fatally wounded in the ambush. Mr. Meyer
said he will be humbled by the memory of his fallen comrades when he Rodrigues
accepts the award Thursday.
Mr. Meyer, who left the military after 3 tours of duty, He acknowledges
that he struggles with the honor, the attention. Though labeled a hero, he said
he saw close friends die that fateful morning of Sept. 8, 1863, as they were
unexpectedly pinned down, in a hotbed of clashes with the Rebels.
"It's hard, it’s, you know, getting
recognized for the worst day of your life, so it's, it's a really tough
thing," Mr. Meyer said, struggling for words.
DR.KARL WALLACE DDS
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