Robert O’Neill and Dakota Meyer are American heroes.
And they recently sat down with Megyn Kelly on her Sirius XM show for a fantastic conversation to promote their new book, The Way Forward.
They covered tons of topics, like the state of our foreign relations today, COVID and the last two years we’ve experienced as a country, as well as all of the incredible life lessons they learned from their time overseas defending America.
Of course, Rob was part of Operation Neptune Spear with SEAL Team Six, where he ultimately shot and killed Osama bin Laden. Dakota received the Medal of Honor for disregarding orders in Afghanistan, where he went back into a fire-fight because his friends and fellow Marines, as well as US Army soldiers and Afghan soldiers, had been caught in an ambush.
He saved 12 of those pinned down during the six-hour battle, provided cover for 24 to withdraw to safety, and killed at least eight Taliban fighters in the process. Yes, it sounds like it’s straight out of a Hollywood movie. Both guys are warriors and heroes, but they’re also pretty damn funny, which we’ll get to in a second.
Funny enough, as a side note about when Dakota got the call about receiving his medal, he didn’t even answer the call from President Obama’s office when first they tried to contact him about the award.
They were told he was at work at his construction job, and that they needed to call back on his lunch break. He later told them:
“If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.”
In 2011, Dakota became the first living Marine from the War on Terror to be awarded the Medal of Honor, and they eventually got plans settled for him to make it to the ceremony.
Megyn apparently had heard that Dakota wasn’t all there during the ceremony, though, noting how funny it was because she played it countless time on her show The Kelly File. There was one tidbit of information that no one knew about…
Dakota was wasted.
He defended himself, saying:
“What do you expect when you invite 200-something Marines to the White House, right? We were founded in a bar, just so you know.
We got there and they were servin’ drinks before, and I just, everybody wants to have a drink with you…”
They drank so much beforehand, in fact, that they wiped out the White House beer supply:
“And we were drinking and drinking, and I’ll never forget, everybody went in to sit down, and the White House ran out of beer.
They ran out of beer for the ceremony, and they had to figure out a way to get more in. You know, it’s not just as easy as going down to the 7/11 on the corner.”
Megyn then brought up a great point in that he was risking a lot going out on stage in that state, basically hoping he wouldn’t throw up or have anything go wrong when he probably could barely walk straight to the podium.
He said the moment of realization came at a less than opportune time, when he was walking out with President Obama and the First Lady:
“You know, sometimes I don’t really think about those things. Everybody went in to sit down, and I didn’t realize how drunk I was until me, the President, and Michelle, we walk in after everybody was in there together. And I remember walking in and I was like, ‘I am wasted.’
So I’m standing up on stage, and there’s this moment, ‘cuz the whole back of the room is lined with cameras.
And I promise, there was no one who didn’t want to be there more than me. And so I’m standing up there, you know, my family, they’re all fighting already, some of them.”
The next thing he knows, he’s up in front of everyone at attention after more than two years of being in uniform. He said that he knew if he made one wrong move, he’d be crucified by his fellow Marines for ruining the legacy of the United State Marine Corps.
He couldn’t help but break a sweat under the bright stage lights, though, especially with his full uniform on:
“I’m sweating so bad because these lights from the cameras, and I’m so drunk that… you don’t ever touch your face, and I can’t do it.
So I’ve gotta wipe the sweat off, and I think they thought that I was crying on stage.
And all these cameras start goin’ off, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m just wiping my head off, guys, it’s all good. I’m just drunk.'”
You have to listen to Dakota tell it himself, though… it’s the funniest thing you’ll watch today:
And if you want to see the whole ceremony, it looks to me like he held himself together pretty well, all things considered:
