Medal of Honor Story

[DaSharkie]

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

In case you missed it, 60 minutes did a story last night on a young Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army that will be receiving the Medal of Honor tomorrow, for his actions in Afghanistan.

Truly, a humble warrior.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?...in;cbsCarousel

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_1...ag=component.0

[cheffie]

Thank you for posting that Sharkie. My eyes are more than a bit teary after watching it. What an incredible man and a humble warrior.

[BSFD9302]

Thank you for posting that Sharkie. My eyes are more than a bit teary after watching it. What an incredible man and a humble warrior.

Same here.

His humbleness is what makes him a true Medal of Honor recipient.

[Jonnee]

Outstanding story. I also saw coverage on the NBC News tonight.

[ChiefKN]

I watched it and was touched.

He is the ultimate American and it makes me proud to know of him.

[DaSharkie]

I went to the White House's web site.

The ceremony is to be at 1400 today EST. Probably ought to be broadcast on Fox, CNN, and a few others.

[CaptOldTimer]

I went to the White House's web site.

The ceremony is to be at 1400 today EST. Probably ought to be broadcast on Fox, CNN, and a few others.

I would hope so but it may not too!

[JayDudley]

Thanks

Thanks for the posting and I did see the airing. The sad part is that there are many more who have excelled and have gone unnoticed...They are all true heroes

[gunnyv]

Likely to be the next living recipient of the Medal of Honor, Marine Cpl Dakota Meyer:

Heroism in ambush may yield top valor awards
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Nov 8, 2010 2:47:32 EST

With no air or artillery support, the Marines of Embedded Training Team 2-8 were trapped deep in a kill zone in eastern Afghanistan. Their radios worked only sporadically, and dozens of insurgents fired on them repeatedly from three sides.

“We’re surrounded!” Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson yelled into his radio in the early-morning hours of Sept. 8, 2009. “They’re moving in on us!”

At least twice, a two-man team attempted to rescue their buddies, using an armored vehicle mounted with a .50-caliber machine gun to fight their way toward them. They were forced back each time by a hail of bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. An enemy bullet hit the vehicle’s gun turret, piercing then-Cpl. Dakota Meyer’s elbow with shrapnel. He shook it off, refusing to tell the staff sergeant with him because he didn’t want to make the situation worse, according to U.S. Army documents outlining a military investigation of the ambush.

What he did next will live on in Marine Corps lore — and, some say, should earn him consideration for the Medal of Honor.

After helicopter pilots called on to respond said fighting was too fierce for them to land, Meyer, then 21, charged into the kill zone on foot to find his friends. Under heavy fire, he reached a trench where the pilots had spotted the Marines, by then considered missing.

He found Johnson, 31; Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick, 30; 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, 25; Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class James Layton, 22; and an Afghan soldier they were training — all dead and bloody from gunshot wounds. They were spread out in the ditch, their weapons and radios stolen.

“I checked them all for a pulse. There [sic] bodies were already stiff,” Meyer said in a sworn statement he was asked to provide military investigators. “I found SSgt Kenefick facedown in the trench w/ his GPS in his hand. His face appeared as if he was screaming. He had been shot in the head.”

Rather than give up, Meyer, of Greensburg, Ky., fought to bring his buddies back home. Bleeding from his shrapnel wound and still under fire, he carried their bodies back to a Humvee with the help of Afghan troops, and escorted them to nearby Forward Operating Base Joyce, about a mile to the northeast of Ganjgal.

Then an infantry rifleman with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, out of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Meyer worked closely with Layton, Lt. Johnson and Kenefick, who was posthumously promoted to gunnery sergeant, in a four-man training team based at FOB Monti in Kunar province. He considered them close friends, he said. He left the Corps in June, after his four-year active-duty commitment expired.

“The main thing that we need to get from that day is that those guys died heroes, and they are greatly missed,” he said. “This isn’t about me. If anything comes out of it for me, it’s for those guys.”

[CaptOldTimer]

I just watched the ceremony. I have to tell you it was very good and being a Army Veteran, it gave me goose bumps and tears flowed from me old eyes.

I have known only two who have receive the Medal of Honor, one in person and the other posthumously.


See this story - http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...l/7297382.html



Gunny, no doubt that Marine will receive one as well!

[DaSharkie]

Thanks for the posting and I did see the airing. The sad part is that there are many more who have excelled and have gone unnoticed...They are all true heroes

I have heard it said (and this is not to cheapen anyone's actions) that the only difference between someone given the award and others that were not, was that someone wrote the story and recommended them for it.

For every awarded action, there are innumerable other similar actions. Most recipients know this, and I think that it plays a large part in why they are humbled by it. They witnessed actions by their fellow warriors that were equal or greater in their eyes, and they went unnoticed.

[PaladinKnight]

Many times people are just victims of circumstance.

I knew a guy that had received the Medal of Honor. He always felt he didn't deserve it. For him it was just a split second decision.

Some times that split second changes the outcome.