Washington, D.C. (April 17, 2025): Talk about one of the few and the brave! In this photo by Lance Corporal Abigail Hutcheson, Marine Corps Sergeant Dakota Meyer, a Medal of Honor recipient, reenlists in a ceremony held at the Pentagon. Sergeant Meyer is the only Medal of Honor recipient currently serving in the Marine Corps.

He received the nation’s highest honor for his actions during the Battle of Ganjgal on September 8, 2009, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. Meyer is the second-youngest living Medal of Honor recipient and the third living recipient for either the Iraq War or the War in Afghanistan.

Meyer deployed to Fallujah, Iraq in 2007 as a scout sniper with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines. On September 8, 2009, near the village of Ganjgal, Meyer was told that three Marines and a Navy Corpsman, who were members of Meyer's squad, were missing after being ambushed by a group of insurgents.

After a search, Meyer found the four missing service members dead and stripped of their weapons, body armor, and radios. He then saw a Taliban fighter trying to take the bodies and, after a brief struggle, Meyer beat the fighter to death with a baseball sized rock. With the help of fellow troops, Meyer moved the bodies to an extraction point.

Meyer’s unit was subsequently ambushed by more than fifty enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from the hills above. During this close quarter battle, Meyer "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” according to his medal citation.

Disregarding intense enemy fire, Meyer would make four attempts to rescue his fellow Marines, killing several enemy fighters with his mounted machine gun and rifle, some at point blank range. During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers. His daring and initiative inspired his comrades to fight on despite the overwhelming odds against them.

Upon receiving his award, Meyer requested that when he was honored, simultaneous commemorative services should be held at other associated locations to honor the memory of his colleagues who died or were mortally wounded during the ambush and his rescue attempts.