By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Like fellow Medal of Honor winners Alvin York and Audie Murphy in World Wars I and II respectively, Sgt. Dakota Meyer is a Southern farm boy who always has been good with a rifle. Like them, he always has been something of a maverick as well. He has strong opinions and tends to be reckless and innovative. All this stood him well in the battle of Ganjigal in Afghanistan's deadly Kunar River Valley.
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has little choice but to rely on momentum to carry him to victory in the Iowa caucuses.
A U.S. Marine awarded the nation's highest military honor is suing a defense contractor he says cost him a job by characterizing him as mentally unstable and having alcohol problems to a prospective employer.
Last week, President Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to a former Marine, Sgt. Dakota Meyer, for his courageous attempts to rescue U.S. and Afghan soldiers under intense enemy fire in Afghanistan on Sept. 8, 2009 ("Kin of killed soldiers say reprimands lenient," Nation, Monday).
Dakota Meyer saved 36 lives from an ambush in Afghanistan, and the former Marine corporal will collect the nation's highest military honor at the White House on Thursday. While he is receiving the Medal of Honor, Mr. Meyer's slain comrades will be memorialized in hometown ceremonies at his request.
A retired Marine corporal who was wounded in Afghanistan while rescuing 36 fellow Marines and soldiers from an ambush was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award, Thursday at the White House by President Obama.
To his credit, Sgt. Meyer has argued up the chain to the president to give Capt. Swenson the credit he deserves.
Mr. Obama joked that when he called Mr. Meyer, who was promoted to sergeant before leaving the Marines, at his construction job to inform him of the award, "he felt he couldn't take the call right then, because he said, 'If I don't work, I don't get paid.'
