Valley honors military service on Veterans Day

MAT-SU — On the day he received the Congressional Medal of Honor, Marine Corps Sgt. Dakota Meyer was not thinking about his own heroics; rather, his thoughts were for his fallen comrades.

“As he received his well-deserved Medal of Honor from President Obama, Sgt. Meyer requested that his fallen colleagues be remembers,” said Jim Pisa, national executive committeeman for the Alaska American Legion.

As guest speaker for Friday’s Veterans Day ceremony at the Veterans Wall of Honor, Pisa recounted how Meyer, the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a reminder that for every heroic action that draws attention, there are hundreds more every day that don’t.

“Outgunned and outnumber, Sgt. Meyer and SSgt. Juan Rodriquez-Chavez made multiple trips into the hot zone,” Pisa said. “Disregarding serious shrapnel wounds that he received, Sgt. Meyer left his vehicle several times looking for pinned down friends and coalition forces. He found his friends and comrades shot to death, and Sgt. Meyer carried their bodies and gear away from the village.”

That was Sept. 8, 2009, more than two years before President Barack Obama would award him the Medal of Honor. Meyer’s unit was part of a column of U.S. and Afghan soldiers moving into the village of Ganjigal that walked into a Taliban ambush, Obama recounted when presenting the award Sept. 15. Ignoring orders to stay put, over the next six hours Meyer made five trips into the hot zone, rescuing three dozen men and retrieving the bodies of four dead U.S. soldiers.

“Because of your honor, 36 men are alive today,” President Obama said. “Because of your courage, four fallen American heroes came home.”

What’s striking about Meyer’s story, Pisa said, was his unwillingness to leave any fallen soldier behind. It’s an example he said that needs to be followed every day in not allowing military service to be forgotten or unappreciated.

“Sgt. Meyer would not leave them behind, and as a nation we must never forget their sacrifice,” Pisa said. “As we remember the more than 1 million men and women who have given their lives for their country since our nation’s founding, our debts to those heroes can never be repaid and our gratitude and respect must last forever.”

Pisa concluded with an observation about the 1979 novel “The Right Stuff,” by Tom Wolfe.

Wolfe wrote that those astronauts had “the right stuff,” Pisa said. “As heroic veterans, they’ve certainly earned that distinction. But my friends, I would not limit that title to that group only. Anyone who’s honorably worn a United States military uniform has the right stuff.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.