I was having a drink with an old friend of mine a few hours ago when he asked me" Of all the things that have been written about you, which ones are really the truth and are their any that you really endorse or approve of?" All that was going through my head at that time as I laughed was I wonder how many times Chuck Norris has to deal with this crap on a daily basis and how I am certainly glad I'm not him. He then added "I hear that the Marine Corps is finally going to get a live MOH awardee in that Dakota Meyer kid everyone is reading about, how do you feel about that?" I said I hope he gets it. He's a good Marine, did his job and he is from the Regiment that I am now the SgtMaj of! He stated "From what I've read that Meyer kid went into a hostile area to retrieve a Marine who was already dead and brought his body back" " I read in COBRA II that you ran back and forth under hostile fire and pulled out 9 known casualties for over an hour, personally carried out a 240lb, 6" 4" Marine on your back for over 100 meters and all you got was the Navy Cross?" I found that the more libations someone has in them the more freely they will finally ask the questions everyone wants to but no one will.
From PG 284 of COBRA II - The fourth AAV nearly made it all the way before being hit with an RPG. It's rear ramp blown open, it was exposed and vulnerable: easy pickings for the Iraqi fighters. From his position on the Euphrates River bridge, Brooks, the commander of Alpha Company, saw the next blow. "A second RPG comes through the open troop hatch and just destroys it, collapses the whole structure," Brooks recalled. "It's a burning mess and looks pretty shocking." Gunnery Sergeant lehew, who had helped to rescue wounded soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Company earlier in the day, rushed forward and spent an hour under fire recovering nine wounded Marines from the wreckage, including carrying a six-foot-four, 240-pound corporal who had been trapped.
Yes, that is true and it is basically the only account of the actions that I have ever put my name to. Pretty funny considering I was the smallest kid in my graduating class I believe at 114 lbs and wasn't much bigger when I was a GySgt in 2003. I guess it rings true that it is not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog...I do remember though he was a rather heavy young man even stripped of all his gear! To this day I believe that his sheer size was the only reason he survived as someone my size would have bled out long before that...
He then went on to say "Why Meyer and not you?" I told him no comparison, different time, different war. In 2003 no one knew how to write awards nor were going to be the one to write MOH citations that early on. They had nothing to compare things to. Vietnam? At that point the war in Vietnam was 30 years ago. No one had experience writing those kind of citations. In 2011, if you read some of the citations for just Bronze Stars they read like Medals of Honor now, the whole process is tainted and everyone knows it. Reason being is that there is now almost 10 years of reference material to go off of when compiling info for award recommendations. "Doesn't that piss you off he says?" Not in the least bit. As I said before, different time, different war. You cannot compare the actions of one individual in any war to that of another, each are all differenct in their respective right. What is done is done as well. You cannot and should not go back into the files and change awards because of the present circumstances or political atmosphere. If you review one, you need to review them all and that is just too big of a tiger to tame. In my mind, only one US Marine alive today deserves that medal, Sgt RJ Mitchell in Fallujah in 2004. 1stSgt Brad Kasal was put in for a Silver Star for that fight and was upgraded to the Navy Cross. Sgt Mitchell is responsible for saving everyone in that house, including Kasal and was awarded the same medal. He was not even considered for the MOH and should have been. Sgt Rafael Peralta deserves the medal as well. I am sorry to say that if Dakota Meyer performed the actions he performed recently, back in 2003/4, he would not even have been considered for the MOH. I am a firm believer that if Dan Daly or Chesty Puller, two of the greatest legends of the Corps, served in todays Marine Corps, then neither would have been awarded 5 Navy Crosses (Puller) or 2 MOH (Daly). It just wouldn't have happened. We have folks getting Bronze Stars and less for some of the actions performed by these men in their citations.
Three things have been written that I fondly remember every single day. One was the paragraph above. I say fondly because I remember the actions of all those around me who rose up to the challenge of the moment and fought like lions, every one of them, most proudly the ones that no one thought they had it in them, those are the ones that put tears in your eyes the most. The other two are just as tragic yet funny and were written by a couple of my troopers in 1/4 during the battle for Najaf in 2004.
From Cpl Rob Black -
My most notable memory of First Sergeant LeHew was the Cemetery in Najaf, in
August of 2004. The fighting had been heavy for the last two days and I was
running casevacs for the Battalion. First Sergeant and I were standing next to
my Humvee talking about Lt. Shickling who had the shit mortared out of him with
hilarious results. (Thank God he wasn't hurt, find me and ask if you want to
hear the whole story) Tactically speaking, it's difficult to describe. Just keep
in mind that we were only half way covered to our left, waist high by the truck,
and totally covered to our right by a six foot tall wall. Suddenly, rounds crack
out from the mass of graves on the other side of the street, and impact in the
four foot gap in between us while we're talking. I do the first thing that comes
naturally to me: trip over my own feet and fall backwards, now in the complete
cover of the Humvee. What does First Sergeant do? Return fire? Take cover? Call
for Close Air Support? No. That crazy bastard walks away from what little cover
he has, turns and stands tall towards the hidden shooter, and proceeds to flip
him off with both hands while calling him every dirty word and ethnic Arabic
stereotype in the book. The shooter flipped his weapon to full auto and simply
sprays the area, trying to hit this insulting little man. How do I know
this? Because I'm less than 6 feet away watching the rounds impact the wall.
They crashed into the concrete spraying gravel in all directions in between his
legs, over his shoulders, next to him, most only missing by inches. Soon, the
shooter runs out of rounds. First Sergeant brings his fingers down, shrugs, and
comes back towards me, picking up the conversation where we left off as if
nothing had happened. Holy shit...
Another story told from a Marine in a different fight.
Third Platoon was tasked with clearing crypts in the Wadi-A-Salam cemetery during the first 2 days of the
fight. The militia was using the crypts as an operating catacomb to attack us
from and First Sergeant LeHew wasn't going to have any of that shit. Rather than
staying a safe distance away (Can't believe I just said that) and telling
another Marine to go in and get them the First Sergeant pulls out his fighting
knife in one hand, pistol in his other hand and takes lead down into the
catacomb like a tunnel rat in the 'Nam. Immediately suprising an
insurgent, he pushes the pistol to the chest of the man and fires, killing him point blank then continues
down the stairs to smoke two more! First Sergeant returns from the crypt,
splattered with blood and says "They want to fight us from the crypts of their
ancestors then we will oblige them by burying them there. There
are many more stories like this from many of the men in the company and the fact
is, they are all true. - Black
It is stories like this that run the gambit of emotions for me and alot of others who have been in the same situations. Laughter turns to sadness and then back to laughter again when talking with folks of these things. It is not PTSD, depression or anything of the likes, it is life. My father came out the front end of an LCU on wave one, Omaha Beach, Dday, June 6th 1944 with the 29th Infantry. Of the 33 men in the boat that morning, 3 survived. Thousands died in a 24 hour span. He survived and went on to fight for 244 straight days in combat before being relieved and most of those men were given no awards, only memories for the rest of their lives. He went on to marry a beautiful woman and raise 5 kids and provided us with a great life. Maybe that is why they were called the greatest generation. Everyone has their experiences and because of those experiences it weaves the tapestry of who we are. For better or worse, I wouldn't change any of it.
Semper Fidelis.
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