That wasn’t quite right. There
The investigation had aimed in the wrong direction. I told my team I’d come for them, and I’d pulled off just because of some pressure. I had clutched as badly as those officers back in the TOC at Joyce.
I occasionally called my Army and Marine buddies, and spoke by Skype a few times with my Afghan friends. I hadn’t seen an active-duty grunt in months. Fabayo and Rodriguez-Chavez were due to receive Navy Crosses at the Marine base in Quantico, but I couldn’t get enough time off to fly back east. Swenson and I had been recommended for the Medal of Honor. We knew, though, that the award was usually downgraded upon review. When I drank, which was too often, I’d laugh at the absurdity. I had screwed up big-time. My achievement was losing my brothers. The Marine Corps would come to its senses and I’d never hear another word from another devil dog. I had no idea what was in front of me, and I didn’t care.
The bottom of the barrel for me came on a country road that is now called the Dakota Meyer Highway in the spring of 2010. After work that night, I visited with some friends and my new best friend, Jack Daniel. By the time I left for home, I had drunk enough liquor to fail a Breathalyzer, but not so much that I was driving erratically.
All I could do was steer and think. I couldn’t take a walk, turn on the TV, or read a book to distract my mind. The emptiness of my life was the dark all around me, with nothing to see in any direction.
Four years ago, I had left the farm for adventure and a new beginning. The Corps had shaped me and I had arrived in Afghanistan, confident I’d do well in the combat. Sure enough, up at Monti I had emerged as the Young Gun. Every day brought fun and danger against the backdrop of spectacular mountains. It was fun stuff, shooting thousands of rounds, not losing many people and not seeing the damage you inflicted. There was no weapon I couldn’t handle, and my team trusted me to get them out of any hot spot my cockiness put us in.
But when it counted the most, I wasn’t with them. They weren’t trained to do my job. Gunny Johnson didn’t spend every day behind the 240. Staff Sgt. Kenefick wasn’t comfortable with weapons or angles of fire. Doc Layton wasn’t a fighter, and Lt. Johnson didn’t adjust fire missions.
“We aren’t worried; we know you’ll get us out if anything goes bad, Meyer!”
Well, I didn’t, Lieutenant. I was a load of worthless shit, not there when you needed me.
Around three in the morning, I pulled my truck into the driveway of a shop owned by my high school friend Derek Yates, and cut the engine. I turned on the cab light and fished out my cell phone. It wasn’t right to burden my dad, but I wanted to connect one last time with someone.
I pecked out a text message to my friends Ann and Toby. They had known me since I was a toddler, but they didn’t know me that well, did they? Here I was back where I had started, with an aluminum bracelet with two names on each wrist.
That’s what I had done with my life—lost four brothers.
I reached into the glove compartment, where I kept my Glock. I always kept a full magazine with a round chambered in the pistol. A Glock doesn’t have a manual safety. You pull the trigger, and the weapon fires.
I stuck the gun to my head, squeezed the trigger.
Nothing.
But, who had unloaded my pistol? Right on the spot, I knew who had done it. Have I ever talked to that person about it? No.
I put away the pistol and drove home. That night, I experienced no sudden change of direction to my life. I didn’t know where I was headed in the future, but I knew quitting wasn’t right. Not that night, not ever.
Did the PTSD clinic make a difference in my life? Yes, it did. I’m still here.
I had a good job with a company testing new gear for the military. The work interested me and I was good at it. But at night I was still drinking myself to sleep until Toby and Ann introduced me to Chris Schmidt, the dean of our local college.
Chris was a no-nonsense guy who didn’t care about what happened in the past. I lucked out, though; his dad had been a Marine and he had almost volunteered to be a grunt. All he wanted to know was what I was doing today, tomorrow, and the day after that. His solution to problems was to set up a daily routine to overcome them.
He took me into his small bicycle group that hit the roads daily for ten or twenty miles. It wasn’t just the exercise; as a group you had to look out for each other on the curves and keep an eye on the traffic. Each rider had to pitch in and was accountable in his own eyes and in the judgment of the group.
I liked that. In some ways, it was like being back at Monti with the team. I had come back to the farm as a loner. That hadn’t worked. I wasn’t holding myself accountable. In a team, you care about the other guys and don’t want to let them down.
I didn’t want to let myself down, either. I was proud that I had served my country and I appreciated all the Marine Corps had done for me. That summer, I took classes at our local college. During one class, a professor told us that we had lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I challenged him to explain why, he said we hadn’t accomplished anything. “We fought for nothing,” he said. “I’m a Vietnam vet, and I know the feeling.”
“I served in Iraq and Afghanistan,” I said, “and I don’t know the feeling. I’m not going to sit here and let you say my guys died for nothing.”
The professor believed the Taliban would take over Afghanistan when we left. I didn’t look at it in those black-and-white terms. No one can predict how Afghanistan will turn out years from now, and I’ll leave it to historians to sort out the mistakes.
We invaded in order to destroy the terrorist network that had murdered three thousand civilians on 9/11. We’re safer here in the States than in 2001 because we took the war to the jihadists and didn’t play defense inside our own borders. I was fairly worked up by the time the class ended. The professor later apologized, saying he came across stronger than he had intended. I told him I could be a little hard-headed myself.
In August of 2011, a Marine colonel alerted me that the White House was reviewing my award packet and might call me. About two weeks later, the White House operator called. I had switched jobs and was pouring concrete. It was hot, noisy work and I could barely hear. So I asked for a call-back in forty-five minutes. My boss said I could take my lunch break early. I hurried over to the local convenience store, grabbed a Coke, and answered the next call on the first ring.
“Dakota? This is Barack Obama,” the president said. “I have just finished reading about the battle and have signed your citation for the Medal of Honor.”
For a second, I thought it was a joke. I never expected the president’s to be the first voice that I heard, let alone that he would introduce himself by his first name. I stood at attention as I spoke to him. The construction crew had followed me over to the store. I’ll never forget their expressions when I gestured to them to quiet down while I talked to the president of the United States.
In September, I flew to Washington. The day before the ceremony, I had half-jokingly said to a White House aide that I’d like to have a beer with the president. When I said that, I didn’t mean to be pushy or flippant.
That evening, I sat in a chair outside the Oval Office looking at the Washington Monument and sipping an ale with the most powerful man in the world. It was irrelevant that my political philosophy was quite different from his. He was my commander-in-chief, and he was extremely gracious.
“What’s on your mind, Dakota?” the president said.
I told him I didn’t have any idea what to do with my life.
His advice was to never stop studying and learning. Education was a lifelong undertaking.
He also observed how he missed the normal things in life, like going to the store to buy shaving cream. He
