by Veeana SinghOne of the teachers in his high school once said, "When you tell Dakota he can't do something, he's going to do it.” Sergeant Dakota Meyer, a US Marine, made several choices on September 8th, 2009. On this day, Meyer was supporting a patrol in a village within the Ganjgal Valley during Afghanistan War. All of a sudden, the lights in the village went out and the familiar sound of gunshots were heard. Turns out, approximately 50 Taliban insurgents had started shooting and throwing grenades in a sneak attack. Meyer, taking immediate notice, called in asking his superiors if he had permission to head into the attack zone and help -- they said he was to stay put. It would be a suicide mission to set foot into the zone that was taking heavy fire. Not willing to leave his fellow men to die, Meyer asked three more times if he could help. Each time his request was denied but that did not stop Meyer and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, whom Meyer was with, from taking action. What happened next could have been predicted by his high school teacher, who had summed Myer’s character up so well: Myer and Chavez ended up jumping into a humvee and driving straight into the attack zone -- against orders. Sgt. Chavez was at the wheel and Meyer, who then held the rank of Corporal, provided covering fire and rescue. They went in and Corporal Meyer immediately began loading fallen soldiers and Afghan troops onto the humvee. During this first attempt, Corporal Meyer was able to rescue around five fellow Marines and Afghan Troops. He didn’t stop there. The second time he was able to load about four other marines onto the humvee, while dodging fire from the 50 taliban insurgents, and bring them to the safety zone. Meyer was also firing back at the insurgents and went through gun after gun, one would empty and he would go right back for another. The Taliban men would run guns blazing right up to the humvee and Meyer would do his best to kill them, not backing down for a second. The gun truck they used the first two times was far too damaged from the gunfire and grenades to make a third trip. This did not stop the two from wanting to go back in for a third time. Sgt. Chavez and Corporal Meyer had to switch into another gun truck. Sometime during this attempt, Corporal Meyer suffered a shrapnel injury on his arm. Knowing their fellow Marines and men were trapped, they made a fourth and fifth trip. They were surrounded but went house to house, and alley to alley searching for those alive and physically picking up the bodies of the fallen. The gunfire was still ongoing and grenades still exploding yet Corporal Meyer made every effort to leave no man behind. In honor of his bravery, President Barack Obama awarded Dakota Meyer the highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. Meyer was the first living Marine to receive the award since 1973. In his speech President Obama said “[Dakota Meyer] 'placed himself in the thick of the fight... again, again, and again.” Meyer has always been insistent that he is not a hero just a Marine and that he did what any other Marine would do. Dakota Meyer can teach us all a valuable lesson on how we should treat people. When he was picking up wounded Marines and Afghan troops up off the ground to bring them safety he was also not doing a lot of things. He was not looking at the race of who he was helping. He did not care about their gender. And he was not concerned with who they were or what he had heard about them. He didn’t turn them over to look at the name or rank pinned to their chests to decide who to help. He just helped, plain and simple. Dakota knew he had to help and in total he saved 36 lives. Dakota’s story takes place over a timeline of just about eight hours. To think that in these hours Dakota did something that most don’t do in their entire lives. He went back 5 times. 5 times he put his life on the line to save his fellow soldiers. Most of us don’t help people in minor ways in our everyday lives. We don’t hold the door open, we judge people and we walk by the homeless. To think if everyone on Earth, in the span of their lives, would put someone else first just 5 times, we would have a much better world. Just 5 times, if we could all put someone else before ourselves, no matter how small the deed, we can begin to have a better world. The issue is that we get caught up in our ‘stuff.’ We all have this massive amount of stuff to do. We are always doing something and forgetting to take a moment and do something for someone else, for someone less fortunate or for someone in need. The purpose of sharing Dakota’s story is to show that if there is someone willing to do something that brave, 5 times, there is no excuse for the rest of us to sit back and just go along for the ride.
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