#rsrh PotUS to honor MoH winner Sgt Dakota Meyer, USMC.

Ceremony today. Citation here (Sgt. Meyer was Cpl. Meyer at the time of the incident)… actually, I’m just going to repeat the whole thing:

CORPORAL DAKOTA L. MEYER
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

For service as set forth in the following

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on 8 September 2009. Corporal Meyer maintained security at a patrol rally point while other members of his team moved on foot with two platoons of Afghan National Army and Border Police into the village of Ganjgal for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders. Moving into the village, the patrol was ambushed by more than 50 enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from houses and fortified positions on the slopes above. Hearing over the radio that four U.S. team members were cut off, Corporal Meyer seized the initiative. With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner’s position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area. During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. When one machine gun became inoperable, he directed a return to the rally point to switch to another gun-truck for a third trip into the ambush area where his accurate fire directly supported the remaining U.S. personnel and Afghan soldiers fighting their way out of the ambush. Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Corporal Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members. Still under heavy enemy fire, he dismounted the vehicle on the fifth trip and moved on foot to locate and recover the bodies of his team members. Corporal Meyer’s daring initiative and bold fighting spirit throughout the 6-hour battle significantly disrupted the enemy’s attack and inspired the members of the combined force to fight on. His unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades in the face of almost certain death reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Out of respect for the sergeant, the two paragraphs of snark and links that were previously here (and directed at the President) have been deleted unpublished.  You probably don’t need me to repeat them, anyway; besides, Donatism is a grievous error.

Sgt. Sal Giunta to retire…

…for those who need their memory jogged, Staff Sergeant Sal Giunta received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Afghanistan; he’s the first living recipient of the MoH since the Vietnam War. And apropos of absolutely nothing, if I’m reading his biography right Sgt. Giunta is from Iowa’s Second Congressional district, which is Dave Loebsack’s.  Loebsack is a three-termer who came pretty close to losing in 2010; it’s a D+7 district, but Iowa’s going to be a lot less Democratic-friendly in 2012 than it was in 2008.

Just saying, that’s all.  No rush; Sgt Giunta reportedly wants to get some more education in before he decides what to do with the rest of his life (and believe me, there are a lot of people out there willing to help MoH recipients with that particular life decision)…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

President Obama needs to fire Rahm Emanuel.

When I heard that the President’s first reaction to the Fort Hood terrorist attack was to go quickly through the prepared version of his speech and then talk about the attack, I shrugged. I knew that we weren’t getting somebody who could connect with the American people on a fundamental level (I suspect that it was a large part of his novelty appeal, after sixteen years of Presidents who could and did), and Glenn Reynolds was right: the President defaults to academic mode*.  I’m sure that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

When I skimmed over the revelation that the President had mixed up the Medal of Honor with the Medal of Freedom, I again shrugged, although less readily.  He’s a Democratic politician, I thought.  Outside specific geographic areas they simply can’t be expected to remember details like that.

But now I hear that he had gotten the medal wrong of somebody he had given the medal to himself not three months earlier, I cringed.  This is precisely the sort of error that a well-trained and well-organized Presidential staff is expected to routinely avert; the fact that it slipped through suggests that this administration has neither.  And that is the fault of the Chief of Staff.

I want to make this point clear: yes, the White House staff is supposed to be better at this.  They are supposed to be competent.  They are not.  And I am not directly blaming the President for their incompetence: he had a reasonable expectation that the person that he has delegated to ensure their competence would do his job.  That COS Emanuel turned out to be this sloppy at his administrative duties is honestly a surprise to everybody.  But the man needs to go, and be replaced with someone with the right skill set.

Moe Lane

*I know that his supporters are fond of thinking of the President as being an avatar of either Kennedy or FDR, but in reality he’s much closer to Woodrow Wilson.  And I’m not going to pretend that this is a compliment.