 The day I enlisted I was walking through the lunch room in my cafeteria and the recruiter looked at me and he said, what are you going to do when you get out of high school? And I said, well, I'm going to go and play football. And he's like, yeah, that's what I'll do because there's no way you can be a marine. I came back to him probably 10 or 15 minutes later and I said, if you'll pack your stuff up. I was like, I'll go sign the papers today. Oh yeah, I thought he was crazy. I was like, what are you doing? Not that I doubted him in any bit because I know that whenever he would put his mind to something he was going to do the best he could be. I knew that he was going with the same passion. He does everything else and I know his work level and that kind of thing. And I knew that when he went into Marines, he was really going to be challenged to the ultimate and not only physically, but mentally. Dakota Meyer is known for plowing through obstacles and overcoming any challenge. Dakota is a guy that you want on your team because he's going to go 100% every play. You don't have to tell him to go 100% in practice. You did not have to tell him to go 100%. You did not have to tell him to lift weights. You don't have to tell him to run. You didn't have to tell him to train. The thing with Dakota, because of his leadership qualities in that, sometimes he pushed others over the edge. Growing up in Columbia, Kentucky, a small town outside Louisville, Dakota was raised on his family's large farm. Much like tending to the animals and lending a hand, Dakota had the same selfless spirit in high school where he volunteered to help with the special needs students. One teacher remembers how he changed a life. Dakota came to my classroom as a peer tutor for an autistic student. And they formed a wonderful bond. The relationship was great. Dakota was a great role model for him. The student was mostly non-verbal, basically in his own little world. And once he began roaming around with Dakota, he got a whole lot more outgoing. He was more willing to walk up to people and try to communicate with them. So that was something that was very special for us, because Dakota, he just filled a need by being that, because most times students don't want to work with special needs students. I think that it was a challenge to him to see if he could do it because nobody wanted to do it. Five years ago, Dakota enlisted in the Marines, and he took it seriously. Don't remember, I really recall getting to boot camp was going in on Paris Island. They make you put your head down on the bus, and you go in and the next thing you do when you look up, there's Marines standing on there. You hear the boots getting on, and then it's pretty much hell from then on. His father, Mike Meyer, remembers the day he picked Dakota up from boot camp. Unbelievable difference. We got basically a nine or 10 hour drive back home. He's sitting perfectly square in the car, both hands on his lap. Straight forward, never would look off left or right. Would only answer a question and would not even speak. I mean, my son's so full of crap, it's not even funny. But he would not speak unless spoken to. When he came back, he seemed like he'd calmed down a lot, and he was a more polite person and respected people. He gets home, everybody says, what's wrong with him? He's not Dakota. I said, gotta give him a week or two to get readjusted. Dakota did loosen up, and his dad says he could flip the Marine switch on and off. Before long, Dakota was sent to Hawaii before he attended his first round of artillery school. Before being shipped off to Iraq for his first deployment. After returning to the United States, Dakota enrolled in Mountain Sniper School before embarking on his biggest mission, the one to Afghanistan. He volunteered to go on ETT in February 2009. You know, I believe that if you're over there on ETT, that's the most important job there is right now in that war, and that's how we're going to win it. I had a sniper team, six man sniper team. I was a team leader. We separated out into fobs. We had a four-man team where I was at. It was myself, Gunner Sergeant Kenneth Fick, Lieutenant Johnson, and Doc Leighton on Cop Monte up north in the northern base. The challenges that I faced, the language barrier was a huge one. I didn't speak their language when I got there, and you have to understand that Afghan soldiers are not Marines, and that's probably the biggest thing you had to work with. The language barriers and diverse culture didn't affect the bond Dakota made with the locals. Every day I would go out, you know, I would sit, I would eat with them, I would try to, you know, go and let them know that I'm on their level and that I didn't walk around like I was better than them. That's a big thing over there, you know. I learned probably more from them than they did from me. In 2009, Sergeant Meyer was part of an embedded training team in eastern Afghanistan. The ETTs lived, train, and fight with the Afghan army and police. On September 8th, 2009, Sergeant Meyer put that knowledge to the test. His unit walked into an intense ambush. We went in to do a key leader engagement to go in and meet with the elders of a village called Gangegaw. And there was a group of about 21 Marines in there and AD Afghans with us. And I was sitting outside of the village with some trucks with another staff sergeant. And they had ended up getting hit and a little ways into air support wasn't coming in, so we decided we should go in there and try to help them get out. The story of what Dakota did next will be told for generations. He told Juan they were going in. Juan jumped into a Humvee and took the wheel. Dakota climbed into the turret and manned the gun. They were defying orders, but they were doing what they thought was right. So they drove straight into a killing zone. Dakota's upper body and head exposed to a blizzard of fire from AK-47s and machine guns from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Coming upon wounded Afghan soldiers, Dakota jumped out and loaded each of the wounded into the Humvee, each time exposing himself to all that enemy fire. They turned around and drove those wounded back to safety. Those who were there called it the most intense combat they'd ever seen. Dakota and Juan would have been forgiven for not going back in. But as Dakota says, you don't leave anybody behind. For a second time, they went back. Back into the inferno. Juan at the wheel, swerving to avoid the explosions all around them. Dakota up in the turret, when one gun jammed, grabbing another, going through gun after gun. Again, they came across wounded Afghans. Again, Dakota jumped out, loaded them up, and brought them back to safety. For a third time, they went back. Insurgents running right up to the Humvee, Dakota fighting them off. Up ahead, a group of Americans, some wounded, were desperately trying to escape the bullets raining down. Juan wedged the Humvee right into the line of fire using the vehicle as a shield. With Dakota on the guns, they helped those Americans back to safety as well. For a fourth time, they went back. Dakota was now wounded in the arm. Their vehicle was riddled with bullets and shrapnel. Dakota later confessed, I didn't think I was going to die. I knew I was. But still, they pushed on, finding the wounded, delivering them to safety. And then, for a fifth time, they went back into the fury of that village under fire that seemed to come from every window, every doorway, every alley. And when they finally got to those trapped Americans, Dakota jumped out, and he ran toward them, drawing all those enemy guns on himself, bullets kicking up the dirt all around him. He kept going until he came upon those four Americans, laying where they fell, together as one team. Dakota and the others who had joined him, knelt down, picked up their comrades, and, through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos, carried them out one by one. Because, as Dakota says, that's what you do for a brother. He calls me, I don't know if it was two or three, four days later, and said, you know, he had been in an ambush. He lost his whole team. He always thought of others first. He would always put himself last. They could have had a thousand over there. He would have kept going back. You know, he wasn't going to leave his brothers behind. Well, he's my hero, you know, but he doesn't want to be a hero because that was the worst day of his life. He would trade all of this to have his friends back. He swears sometimes that he should have died that day. And, you know, it's a good thing he didn't. What he did was remarkable. A lot of people stepped up that day. You know, not just him, but others too. But it was just a bad day. It's a great honor to be getting the Medal of Honor. It's not for me. It's for those guys. It's for the Marine Corps. It's for the Marines that are serving. And, you know, the Marines that will serve.