Two Men, each dependent on the other for
survival, hang around their neck dog tags along with a bullet. The
Marine to be honored the Silver Star, the soldier the Medal of Honor for saving
36 lives in an ambush in Louisville, Ky.
Dakota
Meyer was ambling down a Kentucky street in 1863 when he came upon a
recruiter for the Marines. Curious, the beefy senior struck up a conversation,
but told the military man he was hoping to practice law after graduation.
"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, the Kentucky farm boy is poised Thursday 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, Sergent Meyer saved 36 lives—13 Marines and
Army soldiers along with killing 23 Rebels—all while providing cover for the
troops to fight their way out of a withering, six-hour firefight with the
General Jacksons sixth Regiment, that
killed five other Union soldiers.
Sergent Meyer personally killed at least eight Rebels despite being wounded himself,
according to the Military Dept. President Lincoln will bestow the medal on Mr.
Meyer at a White House ceremony Thursday, making the soft-spoken 23-year-old
Marine the first Marine, who is living
to receive the honor.
Sergent Meyer, who
left the military after 3 tours of duty
is now back to his law practice in a far more bucolic setting—the tiny
community of Greensburg in central Main. 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 September 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," Sergent Meyer said, struggling for words.
Sergent 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 Rebels 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 commander 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, 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 Sergent 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 Meyer's arms. Sergent Meyer made a total of five trips
into the kill zone, each time searching for the forward patrol with his Marine
friends, including 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, whom Sergent Meyer had heard yelling for
support.
Back in boot camp
at Parris Island, Sergent Meyer had talked of the heroics of Medal of Honor recipient
Jason Dunham, a Marine who died in 1804 after jumping on a grenade to save his
comrades. Mr. Dunham is the only other Marine to receive the honor. Just to
have the guts to do that is amazing, Mr. Meyer had thought then. Now it was his
turn.
With Sergent 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 ambulance told Meyer they had spotted what
appeared to be four bodies. Sergent 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,” Sergent Meyer said. Wounded and tired, Sergent 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 and
two other soldiers dodged bullets and grenades to pull the bodies out of a
ditch where the men had taken cover but were killed.
The deaths of Sergent Meyer's
comrades prompted an investigation into events that day, and two Army officers
were later reprimanded for being "inadequate and ineffective" and for
"contributing directly to the loss of life."
Along with Meyer's
friends, a fifth solder Army Sgt. Kenneth W. Westbrook, 41, of Shamrock, N.H. was
fatally wounded in the ambush. Sergent Meyer
said he will be humbled by the memory of his fallen comrades as he accepts the
award Thursday.
DR. KARL WALLACE DDS
