Dakota Meyer, who in 2011 became the first living Marine since the Vietnam War to be awarded the Medal of Honor, is reenlisting in the Marine Reserve.
“I realized I had more to give,” said Meyer, now 36, during a roundtable with reporters Thursday. “I love this country with every moral fiber of my being. I always have. The same reason that I joined 20 years ago is the same reason I’m coming back in. I’ve just got more to give and it’s just such an honor to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the men and women wearing the nation’s cloth today.”
Meyer spoke with reporters before a ceremony scheduled for later on Thursday, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was scheduled to reenlist him at the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes.
Meyer’s return to duty is unusual but not unheard of for Medal of Honor recipients. Many recipients of the Medal quickly leave the military, often due to medical issues or in light of the public profile that Medal of Honor recipients often find themselves in. But at least one recipient, Matthew Williams, remains on active duty with the Army, a service official told Task & Purpose on Thursday. Several other Medal recipients, including Navy SEAL Edward Byers, Army officer William Swenson, Green Beret Earl Plumlee and Delta Force soldier Thomas Payne, also remained on active duty after being awarded the Medal for actions in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.
A firefight in Kunar Province
On Sept. 8, 2009, Meyer was deployed to Kunar Province, Afghanistan, when his unit was ambushed by more than 50 Taliban fighters. Over the course of six hours, Meyer fought his way to and from the ambush site five times, rescuing a total of 36 U.S. and Afghan troops.
He also helped recover four fallen U.S. service members: Three Marines and a Navy corpsman.
“Dakota and the others who had joined him knelt down, picked up their comrades and — through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos – carried them out, one by one. Because, as Dakota says, ‘That’s what you do for a brother,’” President Barack Obama later said during Meyer’s Medal of Honor ceremony
Meyer, who left the Corps in 2010, is returning to the Marines as an infantry rifleman. To do so, he had to pass both the Physical and Combat Fitness Tests. He said that the PT test has become harder since he first enlisted at 17.
“The standards are higher,” Meyer said. “The demands are higher. And it just means the men and women who are wearing the nation’s cloth are better, and they are doing great things. Right now, I think I’m just trying to get my feet back under me of coming back in and becoming an asset to a unit. Down the road, I hope to stay in the Marine Corps as long as they’ll let me and as long as I can be an asset to it.”
Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos A. Ruiz told reporters that he has been talking with Meyer about reenlisting for about two years. Meyer requested that he meet the requirements that all other Marines face, and that he return to the Corps at his old rank of sergeant because he needed to earn a promotion to staff sergeant, Ruiz said.
“He knows our culture and he knows we wouldn’t want it any other way,” Ruiz said.
Meyer also said that his first conversation with Marine Corps officials about reenlisting was about making sure he would be able to serve his country like any other Marine.
“If I were going to come back in, I wanted to be able to be a sergeant,” Myer said. “I didn’t want any special treatment. I want to be able to go back and serve alongside my unit. If that unit ends up going and being deployed, I asked that I would have the same opportunities as any other sergeant.”
Meyer also said he can’t wait to rejoin rank-and-file Marines and show that he is just like them, whether it means picking up a broom and sweeping or getting “in the mud with them.”
“I’m fully going to immerse into whatever they need me to do and just show up every single day and be a sergeant in the Marine Corps. I think it’s going to be fine. I don’t know it’s going to be that big of a deal.”
To which Ruiz joked, “It’s going to be a big deal.”