Two days ago I watch a segment on television that marked my psychic like few have. The segment was aired on CBS's 60 Minute Sunday night program. Thank-fully I was also able to find the 60 Minutes piece on The Marine Corps Times BattleRattle blog. The article ends with the statement "We’re watching history unfold before our eyes. It’s just a shame it has to be so painful." I will have some of my own final thoughts at the end of this blog. Now I share with you the CBS program I saw two nights ago and the subsequent "Battle Rattle" article posted on the internet. Mr. Lamothe's Thoughts on the '60 Minutes' piece with Dakota Meyer
September 19th, 2011 Posted by Dan Lamothe
Last night, the messy background behind Sgt. Dakota Meyer’s Medal of Honor was reintroduced to the nation.
In a 15-minute piece on “60 Minutes,” CBS reporter David Martin outlined what went wrong in the six-hour battle in Ganjgal, Afghanistan, that led to Meyer taking his life in his hands on Sept. 8, 2009, in an attempt to save as many Afghan and American forces as he could from the teeth of a well planned ambush.
Some of the details reported last night will be common knowledge to those who have tracked Ganjgal, but there were some new details.
The Army Center for Lessons Learned training video of the account had not been widely distributed, for example. CBS also tracked down retired Col. Richard Hooker, one of the two officers who investigated the leadership failures that played a key role in what went wrong. Meyer himself also described what happened with refreshing candor, as painful as it is.
Readers of Marine Corps Times, Bing West’s “The Wrong War,” and some of McClatchy reporter Jonathan Landay’s initial reporting on the battle will know much more about the failures and frustration that day, however.
Since late 2009, I’ve actually written four Marine Corps Times cover stories that focused heavily on Ganjgal (note: I’ve linked them below), along with about 20 other shorter pieces.
There’s always another thread to pull on with the story. What about the reprimands? What about awards that are still pending? It’s a messy situation, and it still isn’t all resolved.
Martin’s piece last night does the story — and the families involved — a great service. It elevates Ganjgal’s profile yet again, adding in a lot of things that didn’t come up last week when President Obama awarded Meyer the nation’s top valor award.
Already today, The Associated Press has jumped on the story, leveraging comments that Gold Star family members Susan Price and Charlene Westbrook made on “60 Minutes.” They’ve shared their thoughts before, but this time it’s with a recently awarded Medal of Honor in the national consciousness.
It’s hard to say what’s next. Already, the Battle of Ganjgal has become a signature moment in the Afghanistan war, and that’s without considering the Medal of Honor case pending for Will Swenson, the Army captain who assisted Meyer in bringing home the bodies of four Americans killed in the battle.
If Swenson receives the award, it’d mark the first time since 1993′s Battle of Mogadishu that two service members receive the Medal of Honor for actions in the same fight. In yet another way, Ganjgal would become Afghanistan’s “Blackhawk Down.”
We’re watching history unfold before our eyes. It’s just a shame it has to be so painful.
Previous Marine Corps Times cover stories on Ganjgal
– Families outraged over engagement restrictions
Enough is enough. Retired 1st Sgt. John Bernard has had it with the war in Afghanistan.
Enough of “shameful” and “suicidal” rules of engagement that leave U.S. troops vulnerable to ambushes. Enough of worrying more about harming Afghan civilians than American forces. Enough of politics.
– Report: Army denied aid to team under fire
Nearly two hours after the initial call for help, helicopter air support arrived — but not before the unit took heavy casualties. The delay occurred because Army officers back at the tactical operations center refused to send help and failed to notify higher commands that they had troops in trouble. In the end, three Marines, a Navy corpsman and a soldier were dead, along with eight Afghan troops and an interpreter.
– Heroism in ambush may yield top valor awards
Meyer agreed to an interview because he wants to keep the memory of his friends alive and bring attention to the ultimate sacrifice they made, he said.
____________________________________
The BattleRattle blog referred to above contains not only the portion you just read on this report, but also additional articles and videos describing this young Marines heroics.
On the beautiful MedalofHonor website and you fill find the following statement. "The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress."
_____________________________________
Medal of Honor citation
"The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to
CORPORAL DAKOTA L. MEYER
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS For service as set forth in the following
ClickHere to watch Sergeant Dakota Meyer's entire Medal of Honor ceremony.
_______________________________
The following videos are a collection of interviews with Sergeant Dakota Meyer and various news reports leading up to and subsequent to his being awarded the Medal of Honor.
TheMilitaryTimes
wltx.com
TheTodayShow
VideoSurf
FoxNews Report
FoxNews Slideshow
YouTube Part 1
YouTube Part 2
YouTube
YouTube2
ABCNews
The USAToday website provides a short slideshow of Sgt Dakota Meyer's Medal of Honor ceremony.
Sgt Dakota Meyer rings the NYSE opening bell.
_________________________________________
The lights were bright. Dozens of TV cameras were fixed on him. Millions across the country were watching.
Then President Obama described how Meyer, 23, was concerned about taking a call from the White House in August because he was at work on a construction site in Kentucky. The president said he waited until Meyer’s lunch break to tell the Marine he had been approved for the nation’s top valor award — and that Meyer immediately went back to work.
“Dakota is the kind of guy who gets the job done,” Obama said. “And I do appreciate, Dakota, you taking my call.”
At that, Meyer grinned and most of the 250-plus people in the East Room of the White House on Thursday laughed. It was a pleasant change of pace for Meyer, who has spent months in the spotlight answering questions about what he calls the worst day of his life: Sept. 8, 2009.
He is credited with braving a maelstrom of enemy fire multiple times that day in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, saving the lives of 36 coalition troops and refusing to give up until he found four fallen members of Embedded Training Team 2-8, his unit.
Meyer’s heroism that day began when he and a fellow Marine, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, refused orders and drove into the teeth of an ambush launched by at least 50 well-armed and deeply entrenched insurgent fighters in Ganjgal, a small village in Kunar province’s Sarkani district.
They rolled into the valley in a single Humvee, alone during the first three trips with Meyer manning the turret and killing some insurgents at point-blank range as they charged the vehicle. Multiple times, he left the Humvee to pull in Afghan troops, and Rodriguez-Chavez guided the vehicle to safety to drop them off.
Two more times, Meyer braved enemy fire in an attempt to save coalition forces and reach his pinned-down friends in the village. He found them shot to death, and under heavy fire carried their bodies and gear from the village with the assistance of Army Capt. Will Swenson, who also has been nominated for the Medal of Honor, according to an Army officer in Swenson’s brigade at the time.
Meyer didn’t speak during Thursday’s ceremony, but Obama outlined those actions in detail, and named the five service members who died because of that battle.
“Dakota says he’ll accept this medal in their name,” the president said. “So today, we remember the husband who loved the outdoors — Lt. Michael Johnson. The husband and father they called ‘Gunny J’ — Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson. The determined Marine who fought to get on that team — Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick. The medic who gave his life tending to his teammates — Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class James Layton. And a soldier wounded in that battle who never recovered — Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook.”
Meyer has used his new high profile in other ways this week to give back to his Corps and country. On Tuesday, he launched the Sergeant Dakota Meyer Scholarship Initiative, a push to raise $1 million with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to help the children of wounded Marines go to college.
On Wednesday, Meyer was granted one personal request: to have a beer with the president at the White House. On a patio outside the Oval Office, they each had a White House Honey Blonde Ale. The beer is brewed at the White House, a spokesman for the president said. It includes honey from bees kept on site.
The families of the fallen weren’t at the White House for the ceremony, but Meyer asked them to participate in their own way by holding memorial services in their hometowns at the same time. From California to New York, they did just that, sharing in the moment as Obama praised his heroism and humility.
“Dakota, I know that you’ve grappled with the grief of that day, that you’ve said your efforts were somehow a failure because your teammates didn’t come home,” Obama said. “But as your commander in chief, and on behalf of everyone here today and all Americans, I want you to know that it’s quite the opposite. You did your duty, above and beyond, and you kept the highest traditions of the Marine Corps that you love.”
________________________________
_____________________________
My thoughts: There is no way I can describe how proud I am and how much I appreciate Dakota Meyer's efforts to fight on behalf of the American people. So I won't even try. Instead, I am going to take the opportunity to ask the same questions I have been asking over and over for some time now. Here goes.
"America, why are we sacrificing our finest young men and women in a war that has no meaning? Will we ever achieve a victory in this Afghanistan War, or for that matter the entire War on Terror (which is really a war on Islam)? And even if we did, what will have been accomplished, beside wasting billions of our dollars and who knows how many gallons of our young American warrior's blood? How many arms, legs, eyes.......lives will Americana ask their sons and daughters to continue to sacrificing in the "fictitious" name of freedom? Can someone explain why we continue to pay this awful price?
If you think the answer is "we do it in order to maintain our freedom and our values", you are an idiot. I can not say it any plainer than that.
When our freedom is really threatened and a war is required to preserve it, then I agree, we must absolutely engage our enemy in battle. But when there is a fight there can be no mercy, until the enemy, no matter who it is, completely surrenders. To fight a war, small or large, means to be committed in the destruction of everything the enemy has, to do it with as few causalities as possible to our own warriors , to spend as little money as possible, and to achieve a crushing, overwhelming victory as soon as possible. In order to fight that kind of fight, the only goal can be to inflict complete and total destruction on one stronghold after another. Avoiding civilian casualties is never a deterrent in the determination of the next target. The fight is not stop - not for one minute - until the enemy begs for us to accept their complete and total surrender. Their surrender must include all military command, government control, and remaining assets owned by the enemy.
A war (any war) must be fought with the most powerful weapons available, and not with the spilt blood of our young military fighters. Granted, this kind of war is ONLY fought when freedom is truly at stake. Therefore, I must reiterate, war by definition means the total destruction, total inhalation of the enemy, with out hesitation. If we in the United States of America ever learn to accept that to be definition of war, and are willing to conduct our foreign policy as such, then our freedom will never every be in danger. I will end by revising the statement I found printed in The Battle Rattle and use at the top of the this blog.
We’re watching history unfold before our eyes. It’s is very painful, and it is just a shame knowing it doesn't have to be.
In a 15-minute piece on “60 Minutes,” CBS reporter David Martin outlined what went wrong in the six-hour battle in Ganjgal, Afghanistan, that led to Meyer taking his life in his hands on Sept. 8, 2009, in an attempt to save as many Afghan and American forces as he could from the teeth of a well planned ambush.
Some of the details reported last night will be common knowledge to those who have tracked Ganjgal, but there were some new details.
The Army Center for Lessons Learned training video of the account had not been widely distributed, for example. CBS also tracked down retired Col. Richard Hooker, one of the two officers who investigated the leadership failures that played a key role in what went wrong. Meyer himself also described what happened with refreshing candor, as painful as it is.
Readers of Marine Corps Times, Bing West’s “The Wrong War,” and some of McClatchy reporter Jonathan Landay’s initial reporting on the battle will know much more about the failures and frustration that day, however.
Since late 2009, I’ve actually written four Marine Corps Times cover stories that focused heavily on Ganjgal (note: I’ve linked them below), along with about 20 other shorter pieces.
There’s always another thread to pull on with the story. What about the reprimands? What about awards that are still pending? It’s a messy situation, and it still isn’t all resolved.
Martin’s piece last night does the story — and the families involved — a great service. It elevates Ganjgal’s profile yet again, adding in a lot of things that didn’t come up last week when President Obama awarded Meyer the nation’s top valor award.
Already today, The Associated Press has jumped on the story, leveraging comments that Gold Star family members Susan Price and Charlene Westbrook made on “60 Minutes.” They’ve shared their thoughts before, but this time it’s with a recently awarded Medal of Honor in the national consciousness.
It’s hard to say what’s next. Already, the Battle of Ganjgal has become a signature moment in the Afghanistan war, and that’s without considering the Medal of Honor case pending for Will Swenson, the Army captain who assisted Meyer in bringing home the bodies of four Americans killed in the battle.
If Swenson receives the award, it’d mark the first time since 1993′s Battle of Mogadishu that two service members receive the Medal of Honor for actions in the same fight. In yet another way, Ganjgal would become Afghanistan’s “Blackhawk Down.”
We’re watching history unfold before our eyes. It’s just a shame it has to be so painful.
Previous Marine Corps Times cover stories on Ganjgal
– Families outraged over engagement restrictions
Enough is enough. Retired 1st Sgt. John Bernard has had it with the war in Afghanistan.
Enough of “shameful” and “suicidal” rules of engagement that leave U.S. troops vulnerable to ambushes. Enough of worrying more about harming Afghan civilians than American forces. Enough of politics.
– Report: Army denied aid to team under fire
Nearly two hours after the initial call for help, helicopter air support arrived — but not before the unit took heavy casualties. The delay occurred because Army officers back at the tactical operations center refused to send help and failed to notify higher commands that they had troops in trouble. In the end, three Marines, a Navy corpsman and a soldier were dead, along with eight Afghan troops and an interpreter.
– Heroism in ambush may yield top valor awards
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.
– MoH nominee says he does not feel like a heroMeyer agreed to an interview because he wants to keep the memory of his friends alive and bring attention to the ultimate sacrifice they made, he said.
____________________________________
The BattleRattle blog referred to above contains not only the portion you just read on this report, but also additional articles and videos describing this young Marines heroics.
On the beautiful MedalofHonor website and you fill find the following statement. "The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States. Generally presented to its recipient by the President of the United States of America in the name of Congress."
_____________________________________
Medal of Honor citation
"The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the repeated risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a member of Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on 8 September 2009. When the forward element of his combat team began to be hit by intense fire from roughly 50 Taliban insurgents dug-in and concealed on the slopes above Ganjgal village, Corporal Meyer mounted a gun-truck, enlisted a fellow Marine to drive, and raced to attack the ambushers and aid the trapped Marines and Afghan soldiers. During a six hour fire fight, Corporal Meyer single-handily turned the tide of the battle, saved 36 Marines and soldiers and recovered the bodies of his fallen brothers. Four separate times he fought the kilometer up into the heart of a deadly U-shaped ambush. During the fight he killed at least eight Taliban, personally evacuated 12 friendly wounded, and provided cover for another 24 Marines and soldiers to escape likely death at the hands of a numerically superior and determined foe. On his first foray his lone vehicle drew machine gun, mortar, rocket grenade and small arms fire while he rescued five wounded soldiers. His second attack disrupted the enemy’s ambush and he evacuated four more wounded Marines. Switching to another gun-truck because his was too damaged they again sped in for a third time, and as turret gunner killed several Taliban attackers at point blank range and suppressed enemy fire so 24 Marines and soldiers could break-out. Despite being wounded, he made a fourth attack with three others to search for missing team members. Nearly surrounded and under heavy fire he dismounted the vehicle and searched house to house to recover the bodies of his fallen team members. By his extraordinary heroism, presence of mind amidst chaos and death, and unselfish devotion to his comrades in the face of great danger, Corporal Meyer reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service."
_______________________________________
ClickHere to watch Sergeant Dakota Meyer's entire Medal of Honor ceremony.
_______________________________
The following videos are a collection of interviews with Sergeant Dakota Meyer and various news reports leading up to and subsequent to his being awarded the Medal of Honor.
TheMilitaryTimes
wltx.com
TheTodayShow
VideoSurf
FoxNews Report
FoxNews Slideshow
YouTube Part 1
YouTube Part 2
YouTube
YouTube2
ABCNews
The LATimes
The USAToday website provides a short slideshow of Sgt Dakota Meyer's Medal of Honor ceremony.
Sgt Dakota Meyer rings the NYSE opening bell.
_________________________________________
On the day before the award ceromony Dan Lamothe a staff writer for the Military Times also wrote this following article about the then Corporal Meyer and his heroic actions. It is an amazing story of a young Marine doing what he felt he had to do.
Posted : Friday Sep 16, 2011 11:46:19 EDT
Glistening with sweat, decked out in his dress blues, Dakota Meyer looked uncomfortable early in the ceremony at which he received the Medal of Honor.The lights were bright. Dozens of TV cameras were fixed on him. Millions across the country were watching.
Then President Obama described how Meyer, 23, was concerned about taking a call from the White House in August because he was at work on a construction site in Kentucky. The president said he waited until Meyer’s lunch break to tell the Marine he had been approved for the nation’s top valor award — and that Meyer immediately went back to work.
“Dakota is the kind of guy who gets the job done,” Obama said. “And I do appreciate, Dakota, you taking my call.”
At that, Meyer grinned and most of the 250-plus people in the East Room of the White House on Thursday laughed. It was a pleasant change of pace for Meyer, who has spent months in the spotlight answering questions about what he calls the worst day of his life: Sept. 8, 2009.
He is credited with braving a maelstrom of enemy fire multiple times that day in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, saving the lives of 36 coalition troops and refusing to give up until he found four fallen members of Embedded Training Team 2-8, his unit.
Meyer’s heroism that day began when he and a fellow Marine, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, refused orders and drove into the teeth of an ambush launched by at least 50 well-armed and deeply entrenched insurgent fighters in Ganjgal, a small village in Kunar province’s Sarkani district.
They rolled into the valley in a single Humvee, alone during the first three trips with Meyer manning the turret and killing some insurgents at point-blank range as they charged the vehicle. Multiple times, he left the Humvee to pull in Afghan troops, and Rodriguez-Chavez guided the vehicle to safety to drop them off.
Two more times, Meyer braved enemy fire in an attempt to save coalition forces and reach his pinned-down friends in the village. He found them shot to death, and under heavy fire carried their bodies and gear from the village with the assistance of Army Capt. Will Swenson, who also has been nominated for the Medal of Honor, according to an Army officer in Swenson’s brigade at the time.
Meyer didn’t speak during Thursday’s ceremony, but Obama outlined those actions in detail, and named the five service members who died because of that battle.
“Dakota says he’ll accept this medal in their name,” the president said. “So today, we remember the husband who loved the outdoors — Lt. Michael Johnson. The husband and father they called ‘Gunny J’ — Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson. The determined Marine who fought to get on that team — Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick. The medic who gave his life tending to his teammates — Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class James Layton. And a soldier wounded in that battle who never recovered — Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook.”
Meyer has used his new high profile in other ways this week to give back to his Corps and country. On Tuesday, he launched the Sergeant Dakota Meyer Scholarship Initiative, a push to raise $1 million with the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation to help the children of wounded Marines go to college.
On Wednesday, Meyer was granted one personal request: to have a beer with the president at the White House. On a patio outside the Oval Office, they each had a White House Honey Blonde Ale. The beer is brewed at the White House, a spokesman for the president said. It includes honey from bees kept on site.
The families of the fallen weren’t at the White House for the ceremony, but Meyer asked them to participate in their own way by holding memorial services in their hometowns at the same time. From California to New York, they did just that, sharing in the moment as Obama praised his heroism and humility.
“Dakota, I know that you’ve grappled with the grief of that day, that you’ve said your efforts were somehow a failure because your teammates didn’t come home,” Obama said. “But as your commander in chief, and on behalf of everyone here today and all Americans, I want you to know that it’s quite the opposite. You did your duty, above and beyond, and you kept the highest traditions of the Marine Corps that you love.”
________________________________
My thoughts: There is no way I can describe how proud I am and how much I appreciate Dakota Meyer's efforts to fight on behalf of the American people. So I won't even try. Instead, I am going to take the opportunity to ask the same questions I have been asking over and over for some time now. Here goes.
"America, why are we sacrificing our finest young men and women in a war that has no meaning? Will we ever achieve a victory in this Afghanistan War, or for that matter the entire War on Terror (which is really a war on Islam)? And even if we did, what will have been accomplished, beside wasting billions of our dollars and who knows how many gallons of our young American warrior's blood? How many arms, legs, eyes.......lives will Americana ask their sons and daughters to continue to sacrificing in the "fictitious" name of freedom? Can someone explain why we continue to pay this awful price?
If you think the answer is "we do it in order to maintain our freedom and our values", you are an idiot. I can not say it any plainer than that.
When our freedom is really threatened and a war is required to preserve it, then I agree, we must absolutely engage our enemy in battle. But when there is a fight there can be no mercy, until the enemy, no matter who it is, completely surrenders. To fight a war, small or large, means to be committed in the destruction of everything the enemy has, to do it with as few causalities as possible to our own warriors , to spend as little money as possible, and to achieve a crushing, overwhelming victory as soon as possible. In order to fight that kind of fight, the only goal can be to inflict complete and total destruction on one stronghold after another. Avoiding civilian casualties is never a deterrent in the determination of the next target. The fight is not stop - not for one minute - until the enemy begs for us to accept their complete and total surrender. Their surrender must include all military command, government control, and remaining assets owned by the enemy.
A war (any war) must be fought with the most powerful weapons available, and not with the spilt blood of our young military fighters. Granted, this kind of war is ONLY fought when freedom is truly at stake. Therefore, I must reiterate, war by definition means the total destruction, total inhalation of the enemy, with out hesitation. If we in the United States of America ever learn to accept that to be definition of war, and are willing to conduct our foreign policy as such, then our freedom will never every be in danger. I will end by revising the statement I found printed in The Battle Rattle and use at the top of the this blog.
We’re watching history unfold before our eyes. It’s is very painful, and it is just a shame knowing it doesn't have to be.
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