Lincoln
Awards Metals
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,
Sargent 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. Sargent 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.
Sargent 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,” Sargent Meyer said, struggling for words.
Sargent 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 Sargent
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. Sargent 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 Sargent Meyer had heard yelling for support.
Back in boot
camp at Parris Island, Sargent 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 Sargent
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. Sargent 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,” Sargent Meyer said. Wounded and tired, Sargent 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
Sargent 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. Sargent Meyer said he will be humbled by the
memory of his fallen comrades as he accepts the award Thursday.
More recently
there has been an interesting development Zachariah Fake a captain in the
Vermont Army National Guard. Is on a mission to return every lost or stolen
Purple Heart to its rightful owner. Every medal has its own story. An estimated
1.7 million medals have been awarded to Americans wounded or killed while
serving in the military. He searches eBay and other websites and scours
pawnshops and antiques shops across the country. Other medals come to him from people
who hear about his effort which operates under the name Purple Hearts Reunited.
Fake begins his search for an owner with the name engraved
on the medal, if one is available, and identifying the era the medal is from.
He then tries to find the recipient or next of kin through online research.
When Fake locates a surviving recipient or family member, he
uses his own money to frame the medal and deliver it in person. He has returned
22 since 2009 and has about another 100 in hand. The families deserve nothing less
than perfection.
To be continued…
DR. KARL WALLACE DDS
To read more Karl stories go to:
karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
