Press Release: RANDOM HOUSE to Publish MOH Recipient Dakota Meyer's Book

Am incredibly honored to be able to share this great news in celebration of Veterans Day.

Random House announced today that it will publish a book by Dakota Meyer, the first living Marine to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor, in almost 40 years. The book will be written in collaboration with bestselling author (and former combat Marine) Bing West, to be published in July 2012.

In September 2009 a large force of Taliban insurgents ambushed a company of Afghan soldiers and their Marine advisors around the village of Ganjgal, Afghanistan. Disobeying direct orders to stay out of the fight, Dakota Meyer and a fellow Marine charged straight into the kill zone to save their comrades. "Those were my brothers, and I couldn't just sit back and watch," says Dakota. Pushed back but unrelenting, facing hopeless odds, he repeated the trip down the only road into the village over and over, under withering fire, each time rescuing more of his teammates. Due to Dakota's unshakable courage, the company rallied, and the lives of 36 Afghan and American men had been saved.

Meyer's book will be an eye-witness account of this battle — what led to it, what it looked like from inside. It will explore the nature of courage, what makes a warrior, and the aftermath of the conflict, including contradictory accounts, and personal and political tribulations that eventually culminated, three years after the battle, in a Medal of Honor Ceremony at the White House in September 2011, where President Obama declared that "the story of what Dakota did…will be told for generations." In the words of the award citation, "his unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades, in the face of almost certain death, reflect a great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps."

Says Meyer, "I'm grateful for the opportunity to tell the whole story of what happened that day and to share the brave and selfless actions of my teammates and my fallen brothers. And there is no one better to work with on this book than Bing West."

Says Random House editor Will Murphy, "Dakota Meyer reminds us of what true valor is. What he did, with his brothers in arms, and for his brothers in harm's way, will resound with every American. We're immensely proud to be publishing this book."