LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer is staying grounded despite a whirlwind tour of national TV appearances, trips to New York and Los Angeles and one-on-one time with the leader of the free world.
The Kentucky-born Marine says the memory of fallen comrades and troops still fighting in Afghanistan keeps him going.
Dakota Meyer
“It’s overwhelming. I’m a Marine sniper, I’m not a celebrity, so it really changes everything,” Meyer said Thursday in downtown Louisville during a convention for Medal of Honor winners.
“I’m still confused with the whole deal, why every one’s calling me a hero because I feel like I was just doing my job and I see guys doing that every single day over there,” he said.
Since receiving the military’s highest honor at the White House two weeks ago, the 23-year-old Green County native has appeared on the “Late Show” with David Letterman, thrown out the first pitch at a New York Yankees game and visited Ground Zero in Manhattan.
“I don’t do it for myself, because if it was for me I would go home,” Meyer said. “But it’s bigger than me.”
Meyer was joined Thursday by Army Sgt. Leroy Petry of New Mexico, who had his right hand severed by a grenade blast in 2008 in Afghanistan. Petry now wears a robotic prosthetic.
Petry said the bright lights of fame that come with the award can be jarring, but he too wants to call attention to the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
LeRoy Petry
“Every time we go somewhere and speak or are seen, it’s representing everyone, it’s not about ourselves,” Petry said. “It’s easy to look at (it that way), when most of us joined the service as a selfless act.”
They are two of only three living recipients who have been awarded the medal for fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Meyer charged through heavy gunfire on five death-defying trips to rescue fellow soldiers and Marines ambushed by Taliban insurgents in Kunar Province in September 2009. The military says Meyer saved 36 lives: 13 Marines and Army soldiers along with 23 Afghan soldiers. Meyer killed at least eight insurgents, but lost four teammates who were killed in the barrage.
Petry received the honor for throwing back a live grenade that had been tossed at him and fellow soldiers in the Paktya province of Afghanistan in May 2008. The grenade detonated as he threw it, taking his right hand at the wrist and further injuring him with shrapnel.
Meyer talked about his experience meeting President Obama, and sharing a beer with him on a White House patio the night before the formal ceremony. Meyer says he drank a beer brewed at the White House.
“I asked for a Bud Light, but I guess because of the budget cuts they had to brew their own beer,” Meyer joked.
He said he asked Obama for advice, and what the president would do if he was a 23-year-old in Meyer’s shoes.
“He said don’t make any rash decisions, take it as it comes, don’t try to force it,” Meyer said. “Just sitting down and talking to him, he’s a great guy.”
Meyer has left active service and is back living in his hometown of Greensburg in central Kentucky. He has started a foundation that helps the children of service men and women go to college.
Meyer and Petry, along with Army Sergeant Salvatore Giunta, are the only three living Medal of Honor recipients who earned it for combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. Giunta, an Iowa native, was honored last year for saving a soldier when his platoon came under attack in 2007.
The Congressional Medal of Honor Society organized the Louisville convention. Organizers say 54 of the 85 living Medal of Honor winners are attending the convention, which ends Saturday.
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