Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer delivered a powerful message to junior Marines at Camp Lejeune, telling them their generation has greater potential than the combat hardened force that fought through two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Meyer brings an unusual perspective to that judgment.
The 38 year old Afghanistan veteran is once again a sergeant, serving alongside young enlisted Marines after spending more than a decade outside the Corps.
“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.”
Those words carry weight because Meyer earned the Medal of Honor for charging into a Taliban ambush in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, in 2009 and rescuing dozens of American and Afghan personnel. President Barack Obama presented him with the medal, making Meyer the first living Marine to receive the honor in nearly four decades.
Meyer appeared with senior Navy and Marine Corps leaders, including Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith.
They participated in two town halls, including a gathering of roughly 1,400 junior Marines focused on suicide prevention and the difficulties facing the ranks.
The Marines did not sit quietly through another polished leadership presentation.
Some shouted questions from the mezzanine, while about a dozen lined up at a microphone to ask about military standards, mental health stigma, available resources, and how today’s force will be remembered.
When one Marine asked what the old guard believed would define the younger generation, Meyer praised him for even considering the question.
He also reflected candidly on the burden of receiving the nation’s highest military decoration while still trying to understand what his own legacy would become.
“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.”
Marine Corps Cpl. Dakota Meyer and Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick pose for a photo in the village of Ganjgal, Afghanistan, while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Meyer received the Medal of Honor for saving the lives of several U.S. service members and Afghan soldiers on Sept. 8, 2009. He also rescued the bodies of four service members, including Kenefick, during that battle. (Courtsey Dakota Meyer)
His assessment was not a cheap attack on those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, it was a blunt challenge for younger Marines to learn from a combat generation whose sacrifices are too often reduced to statistics, slogans, and ritualized social media campaigns.
“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 also described his own difficult years after leaving the Marine Corps, including periods when he slept in his pickup truck while struggling with post traumatic stress and alcohol. There was no sugarcoating and no bureaucratic jargon, just a Marine explaining how badly life can unravel and how it can still be rebuilt.
“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 returned to the Marine Reserve in 2025 while taking a civilian position as a special assistant to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
In April, he completed the demanding Basic Reconnaissance Course at Camp Pendleton, California, proving that his return was about service and standards rather than ceremony.
“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.”
That final instruction went straight to the heart of the event. Policies, programs, and Pentagon talking points have their place, but Marines watching over the people beside them remains one of the strongest defenses against isolation, despair, and suicide.
Meyer’s message was ultimately one of earned confidence, not empty flattery.
America’s junior Marines have the potential, discipline, and responsibility to build a stronger legacy, provided they uphold the standard and refuse to leave one another behind.
