When Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer plunged into Afghanistan's Ganjgal Valley, he was sure he wouldn't come out alive.
"I don't think there was ever a question in my mind if I was going to die," Meyer said. "It was just when."
Inside the narrow valley, Taliban insurgents were dug into the high ground and hidden inside a village, pouring down deadly fire at Afghan forces and their American advisers. Armed militants swarmed the low ground to try to finish off the troops.
Meyer's team was pinned down near the village. He wasn't going to wait and see whether they would get out. Defying orders to stay put, Meyer set himself in the turret of a Humvee and rode straight into the firefight, taking fire from all directions. He went in not once, but five times, trying to rescue his comrades.
During about six hours of chaotic fighting, he killed eight Taliban militants and provided cover for Afghan and U.S. servicemen to escape the ambush, according to a Marine Corps account of the events.
The Medal of Honor is the nation’s highest award for bravery.
Meyer saved the lives of 13 U.S. troops and 23 Afghan soldiers that day, Sept. 8, 2009.
Tomorrow, President Obama will award him the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for bravery. During the ceremony Sept. 15, Meyer will become the third living recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Meyer, who joined the Marines almost on a lark, said in an interview with USA TODAY at his grandparents' farm that what he did was an easy decision to make.
"My best friends were in there getting shot at," he said.
Meyer said he knew he was taking a chance by defying orders, but he never doubted his decision. "I'd rather be sitting in jail right now for the rest of my life for something like this and those guys be alive than … questioning if I could have done something different," he said.
As a youth, irrepressible and blunt
Greensburg is a small town in a "dry" county, where alcohol sales are forbidden. The rolling hills are dotted with small churches, cornfields and farms where cows and horses roam.
"We don't really have people in a small community ever get a lot of honor," said Mike Griffiths, Meyer's high school football coach and a mentor.
In high school, Meyer was smart but also irrepressible and blunt. Teachers were impressed by his intelligence, but Meyer's strong will and independence often would frustrate them, Griffiths said. After his parents divorced, Meyer was brought up by his father on a farm next to his grandparents'.
"He is going to size you up," Griffiths said. "He's going to know … how far he can push the envelope."
When Meyer was in a required home economics class, he and a few friends told the teacher they were taking two months off from class to train for a bobsledding team. The teacher walked into the class to find Meyer and his friends lined up in chairs, pretending to be in a bobsled.
When the frustrated teacher said she was going to call the assistant principal, she was told not to bother; they knew where his office was.
"I definitely wasn't the model student," Meyer said.
His irreverence carried over to his farm work. Told to pick up some livestock for the farm, he once came back with an ostrich, said Marine Gunnery Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, who deployed with Meyer to Afghanistan.
Meyer had another side that few people saw, friends say.
During his senior year in high school, he approached Tana Rattliff, who taught a class of special-needs students, and asked whether he could work as a peer tutor in her class. Rattliff was wary. She didn't know Meyer well, but she knew he was a popular jock, a running back and linebacker on the football team, and wondered about his motives.
"If you do this, you have to be a good role model," she warned him.
One autistic teenager had spent most of his time in special-needs classes and was particularly withdrawn, she recalled. Meyer took him by the hand and showed him around the school.
Before long, the students in the class adored Meyer and would attend school football games to cheer him on, Rattliff said.
Meyer said he learned from the students, too.
"They don't worry about the normal stuff that a high school student does," Meyer said. "The last thing on their mind is a boyfriend or a girlfriend or what somebody said.
"They enjoy life to the fullest."
It turned out to be "the best year of teaching I ever had," Rattliff said. "We became like a family."
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