Meyer was born June 26, 1988 in Columbia, Kentucky where he grew up and attended school. In 2006, after graduation from Green County High School, he enlisted in the Marine Corps at a recruiting station in Louisville, Kentucky and was sent to Recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. After completing training to be a United States Marine he deployed to Fallujah, Iraq, in 2007 as a Scout Sniper with 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines. He gained national attention for his actions in Afghanistan during his second deployment in Kunar province with Embedded Training Team 2-8.
On September 8, 2009, near the village of Ganjgal, Meyer learned that three U.S. Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman were missing after being ambushed by a group of insurgents.He charged into an area known to be inhabited by insurgents and under enemy fire. Meyer eventually found all four dead and stripped of their weapons, body armor, and radios.With the help of some friendly Afghan soldiers, he moved the bodies to a safer area where they could be extracted.During his search, Meyer "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.President Obama and the audience applaud after Dakota Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor during a ceremony in the White House on September 15, 2011.On November 6, 2010, the Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Amos told reporters during a visit to Camp Pendleton, California, that a living Marine had been nominated for the Medal of Honor. Two days later, Marine Corps Times
, an independent newspaper covering U.S. Marine operations, reported that the unnamed individual was Meyer, citing anonymous sources. CNN confirmed the story independently two days later. On June 9, 2011, the Marine Corps announced that two other Marines on Meyer's team in Ganjgal would receive the Navy Cross, the second-highest award for valor a Marine can receive. Capt. Ademola D. Fabayo and Staff Sgt. Juan J. Rodriguez-Chavez were recognized for their roles in retrieving the Marines and corpsman. Before Meyer went looking for the missing men on foot, Rodriguez-Chavez drove a gun truck into the kill zone, with Fabayo manning its machine gun.When President Barack Obama's staff called Meyer to set up a time for the President to inform him that his case for the Medal of Honor had been approved, Meyer was working at his construction job and asked if they could please call him back when he was on his lunch break, which they later did. Dakota then returned to work. Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor in a ceremony on September 15, 2011.When a White House staffer contacted Meyer to arrange the ceremony, the former Marine asked if he could have a beer with the President. He then received an invitation to the White House the afternoon before the ceremony. Meyer also requested that when he was honored, simultaneous commemorative services should be held at other associated locations to honor the memory of his colleagues who died or were mortally wounded during the ambush and his rescue attempts. Four Americans died in the ambush: 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, a 25-year-old from Virginia Beach; Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick, 30, of Roswell, Ga.; Hospital Corpsman Third Class James R. Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif.; and Edwin Wayne Johnson Jr., a 31-year-old Gunnery Sergeant from Columbus, Ga. A fifth man, Army Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth W. Westbrook, 41, of Shiprock, N.M., later died from his wounds. Dakota Meyer has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, defense contractor BAE Systems, alleging the company and his supervisor there punished him for his opposition to a weapons sale to Pakistan. Meyer is suing defense contractor BAE Systems OASYS Inc. that he says ridiculed his Medal of Honor, called him mentally unstable and suggested he had a drinking problem, thereby costing him a job.On December 14, 2011 McClatchy Newspapers published an article which questioned the actual number of lives Meyer saved, while acknowledging his unquestioned heroism. The article stated that "crucial parts that the Marine Corps publicized were untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated". However, all that was "unnecessary" because Meyer "by all accounts deserved his nomination.
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