Living U.S. Marine to receive Medal of Honor

WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials say President Barack Obama will present the Medal of Honor to a Texas Marine who braved enemy fire in Afghanistan in a bid to find and retrieve three missing Marines and a Navy corpsman.

Dakota Meyer of Austin, who left active duty in June 2010, will be the first living Marine in 41 years to receive the nation's highest award for valor.

Only two living recipients — Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta and Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry — have received the award for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decision to present the award to Meyer was first reported Tuesday by Leatherneck, a Marine Corps Association publication, and by the Marine Corps Times, an independent newspaper. Both said Obama called Meyer on Monday to break the news.

The Marine Corps Times reports that Meyer will be "the first living Marine recipient of the nation's highest award for valor since now-retired Sgt. Maj. Allan Kellogg received the medal for actions 41 years ago in Vietnam. Cpl. Jason Dunham is the only Marine to receive the medal for current conflicts, and he received it posthumously after throwing himself on a grenade in Husaybah, Iraq, in 2004 to save the lives of fellow Marines."

Meyer was a scout sniper, according to the Marine Corps Times, who "charged into a kill zone on foot and alone to find three missing Marines and a Navy corpsman, who had been pinned down under intense enemy fire in a remote village near the Pakistan border. Already wounded by shrapnel, Meyer found them dead and stripped of their gear and weapons, and helped carry them from the kill zone."