Ambushed in a small village in Afghanistan, Cpl. Meyer watched as members of his unit were pinned down ahead of him. On the radio he heard their repeated pleas for artillery or an air strike that could save them. After about 45 minutes, when neither artillery rounds nor helicopters arrived, Meyer radioed his superiors for permission to try to rescue them in a gun-mounted armored vehicle. The answer was no.
After four requests were denied, Meyer and Staff Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez, who was awarded the Navy Cross, defied orders and went in. "I didn't think I was going to die, I knew it," says Meyer. Asked why he would drive through such a wall of fire, he replies, "There was U.S. troops getting shot at and those are your brothers." For Meyer, the mission was clear. "You either get them out alive or you die trying. If you don't die trying, you didn't try hard enough."
During the first two trips, they evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded, Afghan soldiers were also brothers. His fire from the open gun turret provided cover for Afghan and U.S. troops to escape the ambush and certain death. Even with a shrapel wound in his arm, he made two more trips, accompanied by other Afghan vehicles, to recover wounded Afghans and search for missing U.S. Marines.
The fifth trip Meyer left the truck, exposing himself to even more fire, with no cover whatsoever, and located and recovered the bodies of his four missing friends, with the aid of others. He had previously rescued 36 people.
John 15:13
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.