Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer gave an audience of junior Marines insight into his own unique position — a 38-year-old combat veteran of Afghanistan who, as a sergeant, now finds himself a peer of junior enlisted members. At a town hall earlier this week focused on suicide prevention, Meyer discussed his struggles after leaving the Marine Corps, his return to uniform, and offered the younger generation some words of encouragement
“I just spent 18 weeks at the School of Infantry-West with entry-level Marines at 38 years old. I want to tell you something. These Marines today, they’re better than me,” Meyer said Wednesday at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. “There’s more potential in the uniform today than there’s ever existed in the history of the uniform.”
Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama for rescuing dozens of U.S. and Afghan troops after a Taliban ambush in Kunar Province, Afghanistan in 2009. He was the first living Marine to receive the award in nearly four decades.
He spoke Wednesday at Lejeune along with senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders, including Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith. The group held two town halls, including one with about 1,400 junior Marines to discuss suicide prevention in the ranks.
While some Marines yelled questions from the mezzanine, a dozen more stood in a line for a microphone to ask questions on military standards, mental health stigmas, and resources. When one Marine asked what the old guard thought would define today’s younger generation, Meyer was quick to reply.
“I’m so happy that you think about your legacy. I wish I would have thought about my legacy in 2011, whenever they draped a medal around my neck. Because now I’m spending a lot of my time trying to re-steer that legacy,” Meyer said. “I hope it’s better than the legacy my generation left.”
Though veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq fought for two decades, Meyer said that in some ways, suicide has become part of the narrative about his generation’s experience at war. He cited the widely followed tradition of 22 push-up memorials for veteran suicide awareness.
“More people can tell you, and have done, 22 push-ups a day for my generation than they can name the battles that my generation won over 20 years,” he added.
Meyer told the audience of E-5 and below Marines of his days spent sleeping in his pick-up truck, as he struggled with post-traumatic stress and coping with alcohol.
“No matter what you’re going through, you can get through it. I want to be the example that anxiety, depression and PTSD … they are injuries. They’re not terminal illnesses,” he said. “Because I’m living proof of it.”
Meyer left service for over a decade and reenlisted in the Marine Reserve in 2025 to take a new civilian position as a special assistant to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. In April, Meyer completed the Marine Corps’ Basic Reconnaissance Course at Camp Pendleton, California.
“Coming back in has been the best thing for me, and I am honored every day. And what I want to tell you is, as somebody who was in the combat generation, to somebody who’s here now, somebody who’s standing in a formation next to these entry-level Marines, I want to tell you, you all are better than we were. Do you all hear that very often?” Meyer said. “You all have it. You all can be it. You all got to start taking care of each other.”
