Slandered Hero Marine Files Defamation Lawsuit

By Gina Miller
DakotaVoice.com

Back in September, we saw a hero Marine receive the Medal of Honor for his amazing, life-saving performance during an ambush in Afghanistan. Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer is one of the few living recipients of the Medal of Honor for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the citation on the award, this noble, young man went to astonishing lengths to help his fellow troops. He disregarded orders to remain at a safe distance from the ambush and proceeded to save the lives of 36 fellow Marines, soldiers and Afghani military members.

Here is the Official Citation for Sgt. Meyer,

“The President of the United States in the name of The Congress takes pleasure in presenting the MEDAL OF HONOR to

CORPORAL DAKOTA L. MEYER

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

For service as set forth in the following

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Marine Embedded Training Team 2-8, Regional Corps Advisory Command 3-7, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on 8 September 2009. Corporal Meyer maintained security at a patrol rally point while other members of his team moved on foot with two platoons of Afghan National Army and Border Police into the village of Ganjgal for a pre-dawn meeting with village elders. Moving into the village, the patrol was ambushed by more than 50 enemy fighters firing rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and machine guns from houses and fortified positions on the slopes above.

Hearing over the radio that four U.S. team members were cut off, Corporal Meyer seized the initiative. With a fellow Marine driving, Corporal Meyer took the exposed gunner’s position in a gun-truck as they drove down the steeply terraced terrain in a daring attempt to disrupt the enemy attack and locate the trapped U.S. team. Disregarding intense enemy fire now concentrated on their lone vehicle, Corporal Meyer killed a number of enemy fighters with the mounted machine guns and his rifle, some at near point blank range, as he and his driver made three solo trips into the ambush area.

During the first two trips, he and his driver evacuated two dozen Afghan soldiers, many of whom were wounded. When one machine gun became inoperable, he directed a return to the rally point to switch to another gun-truck for a third trip into the ambush area where his accurate fire directly supported the remaining U.S. personnel and Afghan soldiers fighting their way out of the ambush.

Despite a shrapnel wound to his arm, Corporal Meyer made two more trips into the ambush area in a third gun-truck accompanied by four other Afghan vehicles to recover more wounded Afghan soldiers and search for the missing U.S. team members. Still under heavy enemy fire, he dismounted the vehicle on the fifth trip and moved on foot to locate and recover the bodies of his team members.

Corporal Meyer’s daring initiative and bold fighting spirit throughout the 6-hour battle significantly disrupted the enemy’s attack and inspired the members of the combined force to fight on. His unwavering courage and steadfast devotion to his U.S. and Afghan comrades in the face of almost certain death reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.”

This is a powerful story of an amazing young Marine, but a new, disgusting story has emerged that this same Marine has been harassed and smeared by a now-former employer for expressing concern about a proposed deal to sell high-tech rifle scopes to the Pakistani military. Now Sgt. Meyer has filed a defamation lawsuit against that former employer, BAE Systems.

As reported last Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal,

“On Monday, Sgt. Meyer alleged that a defense contractor has called him mentally unstable and a problem drinker, ruining his chances for a job in the defense industry.

In legal papers filed Monday, the Marine claims that BAE Systems, where he worked earlier this year, retaliated against him after he raised objections about BAE’s alleged decision to sell high-tech sniper scopes to the Pakistani military. He says his supervisor at BAE effectively blocked his hiring by another defense contractor by making the claims about drinking and his mental condition.

… The amended complaint filed in a Texas state court said that after leaving active duty in May 2010, Sgt. Meyer joined Ausgar Technologies, a defense contractor that hires veterans to train active-duty service members. At that company, Sgt. Meyer helped teach U.S. soldiers to use thermal imaging to spot roadside bombs. Less than a year later, in March 2011, Sgt. Meyer joined BAE Systems, though the suit doesn’t make clear the exact nature of his job there.

Soon after joining BAE, Sgt. Meyer learned it was trying to sell advanced thermal optic scopes to Pakistan, according to the suit. In an email to his supervisor, identified as Bobby McCreight, Sgt. Meyer voiced his objections to the sale, the lawsuit states.

‘We are taking the best gear, the best technology on the market to date and giving it to guys known to stab us in the back,’ Sgt. Meyer wrote to Mr. McCreight, according to the lawsuit. ‘These are the same people killing our guys.’”

A spokesman for BAE said the decision to sell defense equipment is made by the State Department not BAE. Oh, you mean the State Department that is headed by Mrs. Bill Clinton, who is married to the former US president who sold United States nuclear, space and missile technology to China? That State Department? Well, that’s just great.

Regardless, we obviously have a problem with unscrupulous contractors and members of our own government who, for reasons potentially ranging from brutish greed to deliberate sabotage are willing to compromise the security of our military. Just like so much in our world today, this is sickening. When Hell is in charge, there is heartbreak for the people, and even though it will not be so forever, Hell is currently very much in charge.

Regarding Sgt. Meyer’s case, the Wall Street Journal article continues,

“In the suit, Sgt. Meyer said that after he voiced his criticism, Mr. McCreight began ‘berating and belittling’ him. The supervisor criticized Sgt. Meyer for making a trip with their BAE division president and made sarcastic remarks about Sgt. Meyer’s nomination for the Medal of Honor, allegedly ridiculing his ‘pending star status,’ the suit says.

At the end of May, Sgt. Meyer’s complaint said, he resigned from BAE over the proposed sale to Pakistan and attempted to get his old job back at Ausgar. In the suit, Sgt. Meyer said he was told that that company wanted to hire him back as did the Defense Department program officer who approves hiring for the optics program.

About the same time, Mr. McCreight contacted a Defense Department program manager and said that Sgt. Meyer was ‘mentally unstable’ and ‘had a problem related to drinking in a social setting,’ the lawsuit alleges.

On June 1, an Ausgar employee wrote an email to Sgt. Meyer saying his rehiring had been blocked by what Mr. McCreight told the Pentagon program manager, the suit says. Contacted Monday, the program manager, Robert Higginson, declined to discuss the case. A lawyer for Mr. McCreight didn’t return a request for comment.

Later in June, Sgt. Meyer filed a defamation suit against BAE in San Antonio, where Mr. McCreight worked at the time.”

So, the question is why would Mr. McCreight behave in this way? Why would he mistreat Sgt. Meyer, and go so far as to bad-mouth him to the Defense Department to keep him from getting his old job back? Was McCreight’s behavior motivated by envy of the coming Medal of Honor award for Sgt. Meyer, or was it actually a blundering attempt to silence Sgt. Meyer? Either way, it appears McCreight—and by extension, BAE Systems—underestimated this fine Marine, and at the least, BAE has a big public relations problem on its hands.

In an editorial column at Fox News online, retired U.S. Marine Corp Lieutenant Colonel and Fox News military analyst Bill Cowan wrote,

“In taking a stand against giving technology to those who might use it against us, Mr. Meyer is again demonstrating the core values which he exhibited in winning the Medal of Honor – care, concern, and devotion for the lives of his fellow Americans on the battlefield.

And while this battle may instead be fought in a courtroom, Mr. Meyer is not backing down. In fact, he’s fully engaged.

His legal team surely knows that BAE will exhaust any and all resources if necessary to win.

In contrast, Mr. Meyer likely doesn’t have deep pockets. He was working a construction job when President Obama called him to say he’d won the Medal of Honor.

None-the-less, his legal team has signed on, and it’s likely not because they don’t believe he has a strong case. By all outward appearances he does.

It’s also likely that BAE will quickly realize they are in a losing battle on many fronts. First, they are engaging a Medal of Honor winner and accusing him of being unstable and a problem drinker. If either or both are true, he should have been confronted, counseled, and possibly let go before he resigned.

Instead, after he resigned, an employee at BAE chose to disparage his character in a conversation with the government and with a new potential employer. BAE will surely lose the public relations war on this front, and maybe the legal one too.

Secondly, if the rifle scopes BAE are trying to sell to Pakistan are indeed better than what our own forces have, their problem suddenly gets much bigger!

Mr. Meyer is absolutely correct when he notes that some of the scopes may well be used against our forces. BAE is providing high technology, battlefield gear to potential enemies! This in its own right is an absolute public relations disaster for BAE, irrespective of how many other defense contractors are doing similar sales. It’s BAE who will be in the news, not them.”

This is a no-win situation for BAE Systems. Right off the bat the company is fighting an uphill battle by standing against a hero such as Sgt. Meyer, and secondly, Americans who are even remotely engaged in US and world politics and events will not look kindly on a company providing such equipment to a country known to stand with Islamic terror groups against the United States, even if the equipment sale was given the go-ahead by the misguided State Department.

BAE needs to issue a formal apology to Sgt. Meyer and settle this case out of court, or else it will not likely go well with them in that Texas courtroom.

Gina Miller, a native of Texas, is a radio commentator. She also works with her husband installing and repairing residential irrigation systems and doing landscaping on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.