Medal of Honor for Marine

www.washingtonpost.com

By Associated Press, Published: September 14 | Updated: Thursday, September 15, 6:09 AM

Memorials to coincide with Medal of Honor ceremony for former Marine who saved 36 lives

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Dakota Meyer saved 36 lives from an ambush in Afghanistan and the former Marine will collect the nation’s highest military honor at the White House on Thursday. While he is receiving the Medal of Honor, Meyer’s slain comrades will be memorialized in hometown ceremonies at his request.

His hero’s moment was his darkest day. Meyer lost some of his best friends the morning of Sept. 8, 2009, in far-off Kunar

                                   

           

(Associated Press ) - In this undated photo released by the U.S. Marines, Sgt. Dakota Meyer poses for a photo while deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Ganjgal Village, Kunar province, Afghanistan. The White House announced the 23-year-old Marine scout sniper from Columbia, Ky., who has since left the Marine Corps, will become the first living Marine to be awarded the Medal of Honor in decades for his actions in Afghanistan.

“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,” Meyer said, struggling for words.

Meyer charged through heavy insurgent gunfire on five death-defying trips in an armored Humvee to save 13 Marines and Army soldiers and another 23 Afghan troops pinned down by withering enemy fire. Meyer personally killed at least eight insurgents despite taking a shrapnel wound to one arm as he manned the gun turret of the Humvee and provided covering fire for the soldiers, according to the military.

President Barack Obama will bestow the medal at a White House ceremony. The two have also met privately, having a beer on a patio outside the Oval Office on Wednesday.

“Over the weekend, the President’s staff called Meyer in preparation for Thursday’s Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. Meyer asked the staffer if he could have a beer with the President. POTUS invited Dakota to come by the White House this afternoon,” spokesman Jay Carney tweeted.

In Afghanistan, Meyer was part of a security team supporting a patrol moving into a village in the Ganjgal Valley on the day of the ambush.

Meyer and the other Americans had gone to the area to train Afghan military members when, suddenly, the village lights went out and gunfire erupted. About 50 Taliban insurgents on mountainsides and in the village had ambushed the patrol.

As the forward team took fire and called for air support that wasn’t coming, Meyer, a corporal at the time, begged his command to let him head into the incoming fire to help.

Four times he was denied his request before Meyer and another Marine, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, jumped into the Humvee and headed into the fray. For his valor, Rodriguez-Chavez, a 34-year-old who hailed originally from Acuna, Mexico, would be awarded the Navy Cross.

“They told him he couldn’t go in,” said Dwight Meyer, Dakota Meyer’s 81-year-old grandfather, a former Marine who served in the 1950s. “He told them, ‘The hell I’m not,’ and he went in. It’s a one-in-a-million thing” that he survived.

With Meyer manning the Humvee’s gun turret, the two drew heavy fire. But they began evacuating wounded Marines and American and Afghan soldiers to a safe point. Meyer made five trips into the kill zone, each time searching for the forward patrol with his Marine friends — including 1st Lt. Michael Johnson — whom Meyer had heard yelling on the radio for air support.

With Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez ready to test fate a fifth time in the kill zone, a UH-60 helicopter arrived at last to provide overhead support. Troops aboard the chopper told Meyer they had spotted what appeared to be four bodies. Meyer knew those were his friends and he had to bring them out.

“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,” Meyer said.

Wounded and tired, Meyer left the relative safety of the Humvee and ran out on foot.

“He just really took a chance,” Dwight Meyer said.

Ducking around buildings to avoid heavy gunfire, he reached the bodies of Johnson, a 25-year-old from Virginia Beach; Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick, 30, of Roswell, Ga.; Corpsman James Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif.; and Edwin Wayne Johnson Jr., a 31-year-old gunnery sergeant from Columbus, Ga.

Meyer and two other soldiers dodged bullets and rocket-propelled grenades to pull the bodies out of a ditch where the men had died while trying to take cover.

The deaths of 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 American — Army Sgt. Kenneth W. Westbrook, 41, of Shiprock, N.M. — was fatally wounded in the ambush.

Meyer said he’ll be humbled by the memory of his fallen comrades as he receives the award Thursday. One of the memorials will be at a Columbus cemetery for gunnery sergeant Johnson, a father of three who served nearly 13 years in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Will Duke, one of the organizers, said the memorials spoke volumes about Meyer.

“I can tell by his actions, not only the actions he took in earning the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan but also the actions he is taking now. Essentially by requesting these memorial services for his fallen comrades, he’s saying this is about them,” Duke said.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Militants Launch Attack on U.S. Embassy in Kabul

www.nytimes.com

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JACK HEALY

Published: September 13, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents launched a complex assault against the American Embassy and the nearby NATO headquarters on Tuesday, pelting the heavily guarded compounds with rockets in an attack that raised new questions about the security of Afghanistan’s capital and the Westerners working there.

At least 10 explosions — apparently from rockets launched by militants — and waves of automatic weapons fire were reported amid the drone of sirens and English-language warnings telling Americans inside the embassy to take cover.

Sediq Sediqi, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that two attackers had been killed, as had one policeman. At about 4 p.m. local time, three attackers were believed to be still fighting. Kerri Hannan, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy, said that no embassy personnel had been hurt.

It was unclear precisely how many assailants were behind the assault or whether they were attacking from a single or multiple locations. The attackers were holed up on several floors of a tall, partly built concrete building that offered a bird’s-eye view of the secured diplomatic and military compounds about a half mile away. Flashes from gun barrels could be seen as the militants fired from their perch. Afghan security forces returned fire from the ground, sending puffs of concrete dust into the air as bullets slapped the building.

“We don’t know how many suicide bombers are in the building,” said Col. Abdul Zahir, of the criminal investigative division of the Kabul police. “They’re shooting at the embassy. We’re still in fighting position. We can’t say anything.”

Two explosions were also reported near the Afghan Parliament, but it was unclear whether militants were specifically trying to attack the government building or other targets.

The embassy assault, which began around 1:15 p.m., was the latest in a string of attacks that have chipped away at a tenuous sense of security in the capital. In August, militants killed eight people in an attack on a British cultural center, and in June, nine suicide bombers breached layers of security to attack the hillside Intercontinental Hotel.

By 3:10 p.m., two Blackhawk helicopters circled the building, but did not immediately open fire.

The streets surrounding the site of the attack, normally choked with the traffic of minibuses, bicycles and Toyotas, were deserted on Monday afternoon of all but security forces and people racing for cover.

“We don’t know what’s happening,” one Afghan soldier said. “Everywhere you can hear shooting.”

Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message, saying the Taliban had set out to attack the embassy, a NATO base and Afghan government buildings. His claim could not be immediately confirmed.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed there were continuing attacks against the embassy and ISAF headquarters, and said in a Twitter message there were “forces responding quickly,” but provided no other details. The attack came less than two months after Afghan forces assumed formal responsibility for security in the capital, one of several corners of the country where security was officially handed over in July.

Sharifullah Sahak and Ray Rivera contributed reporting.