generalspeaking

Duty, Above and Beyond

There is deep admiration that must touch everyone on learning about the actions of Marine Corps. Sgt. Dakota Meyer. He can boast - but because he is obviously someone endowed with humility as well as courage, he will not - that he was solely responsible, through a determined action he took, despite orders to the contrary, for saving many lives, under extreme, volatile duress.

By all accounts, he is a modest man with a strong sense of obligation to his country and his society. A very young man, raised on the land, and one who saw his duty to respond to his country's call doing military service. Despite his desperately courageous action which resulted in the rescue of both Afghan and American military personnel, he is anguished that not everyone involved in a Taliban ambush was saved.

Such a sense of personal responsibility in so young a man, 21 at the time, is highly unusual. So it made good sense that a highly unusual recognition be given him, with the President of the United States presenting the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, to a young marine whose exploits in Afghanistan were themselves highly unusual.

His actions, in stark contrast to those of officers at a nearby Army headquarters position who decided to deny a request for artillery support for a Marine training team that got caught in an ambush from which it was clear they could not, on their own, break their way through. That was one betrayal.

The other was the betrayal of trust invested in village elders who lured the Afghan and American team to the village of Ganjigal in Kunar Province in 2009. The Americans were working under the premise advanced by General David Petraeus that the counterinsurgency would see success once the military managed to gain the trust of the villagers and the elders where the Taliban had ensconced themselves.

Risky business this, to feel that foreign interlopers could gain the "hearts and minds" of locals in a country that throughout its history has always (with good reason: the "Great Game" of the colonial-era) mistrusted foreigners, and where human nature conspires naturally to ensure that indigenous people would always find comfort in the company of their own.

The village elders conspired with the Taliban to bring an Afghan and U.S. column comprised of soldiers, border police officers and American trainers into the village for a loya jirga. Before entering the village gunfire ensued and the team was trapped. Cpl. Meyer's radio transmitted to him the calls for assistance, for artillery support.

He heard the officers deny the request, unwilling to provide airfire when they were uncertain of the positions of other troops upon whom they might improvidently fire. Cpl. Meyer asked permission to enter the ravine to help the trapped men, but was firmly told to remain where he was. He thought otherwise and drove to the village.

Throughout the course of six hours of desperate manoeuvring, Cpl. Meyer and his driver drove five times with five different vehicles into the ravine toward Ganjigah village, coming under fire, and four times they rescued wounded men, both Afghan and Americans who were trapped. When the Captain of the group had been freed, he too joined Cpl. Meyer and his driver.

Firing at the Taliban fighters, while simultaneously gathering up the wounded to return them to safety, Marine Corps Sgt. Dakota Meyer demonstrated extreme courage under fire, although he was convinced that he would never himself, emerge from the situation alive.

Labels: Afghanistan, Heroes and Villains, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 17, 2011