[World'sGoneInsane]

I posted two stories. The first being the attack on the Marine from the reporter. In the forum post section, I posted the follow-up from the Marines he served with.

Experience shows, many outlets will push the first story without the follow-up. If this post serves to preempt a smear, then I am glad you and others are reading it.

[kabar]

There is a natural confusion in battle just as you have when you get different accounts from eyewitnesses to an accident. However, there are claims that can be factually ascertained. Nowhere in the article do I find anyone who says that Meyer doesn't deserve the MOH.

McClatchy found that the claim that Meyer saved the lives of 13 U.S. Marines and soldiers couldn’t be true. Twelve Americans were ambushed — including this correspondent — and of those, four were killed. (One wounded American would die a month later.) Moreover, multiple sworn statements affirm McClatchy’s firsthand reporting that it was the long-delayed arrival of U.S. helicopters that saved the American survivors.

There are no statements attesting to Meyer killing eight Taliban as recounted on the Marine Corps website. The driver of Meyer’s vehicle, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, reported seeing Meyer kill one insurgent.

No sworn statements — including one Meyer gave to military investigators five days after the battle — refer to him leaping from the Humvee’s turret to rescue 24 wounded Afghan soldiers on his first two runs into the valley. Rodriguez-Chavez attested to nine Afghan soldiers getting into the Humvee by themselves while Meyer remained in the turret.

Four sworn statements, including Rodriguez-Chavez’s, undermine the claim that he and Meyer drove into the valley against orders. And the documents indicate that it was Swenson who led the final drive to retrieve the fallen Americans, taking command of Meyer’s Humvee after ditching his bullet-riddled Ford Ranger. Meyer rode in the Humvee’s back seat.

The inflated versions of events were prepared at the Marine Corps’ Public Affairs office at the Pentagon by a special working group assembled for the task, a knowledgeable official said. The group consulted Meyer’s former commander, Williams, as it drafted the citation, but it didn’t confer with him in assembling the account posted on the Marine Corps website, the official said.

The Marines excluded Williams — who was shot and wounded in the left arm during the battle and won a Bronze Star for valor — from Meyer’s ceremony at the White House. Also excluded was Capt. Ademola Fabayo, who won the Navy Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor, for his role in Ganjgal. Williams and Fabayo declined to be interviewed for this article.