LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Dakota Meyer saved 36 lives from an ambush in Afghanistan and the former Marine will collect the nation's highest military honor at the White House on Thursday. While he is receiving the Medal of Honor, Meyer's slain comrades will be memorialized in hometown ceremonies at his request. 
 
 His hero's moment was his darkest day. Meyer lost some of his best friends the morning of Sept. 8, 2009, in far-off Kunar Province. 
 
 "It's hard, it's ... you know ... getting recognized for the worst day of your life, so it's... it's a really tough thing," Meyer said, struggling for words. 
 
 Meyer: Afghan battle was "worst day of my life" 
 
 Meyer charged through heavy insurgent gunfire on five death-defying trips in an armored Humvee to save 13 Marines and Army soldiers and another 23 Afghan troops pinned down by withering enemy fire. Meyer personally killed at least eight insurgents despite taking a shrapnel wound to one arm as he manned the gun turret of the Humvee and provided covering fire for the soldiers, according to the military. 
 
 President Barack Obama will bestow the medal at a White House ceremony. The two have also met privately, having a beer on a patio outside the Oval Office on Wednesday. 
 
 "Over the weekend, the President's staff called Meyer in preparation for Thursday's Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House. Meyer asked the staffer if he could have a beer with the President. POTUS invited Dakota to come by the White House this afternoon," spokesman Jay Carney tweeted. 
 
 Appearing on "The Early Show" Thursday, Meyer said he took the opportunity to ask the president for advice on how to be successful. 
 
 "He said, 'You know, first thing, get an education and he said just take it slow and don't try to make any rash decisions,'" he said. 
 
 In Afghanistan, Meyer was part of a security team supporting a patrol moving into a village in the Ganjgal Valley on the day of the ambush. 
 
 Meyer and the other Americans had gone to the area to train Afghan military members when, suddenly, the village lights went out and gunfire erupted. About 50 Taliban insurgents on mountainsides and in the village had ambushed the patrol. 
 
 As the forward team took fire and called for air support that wasn't coming, Meyer, a corporal at the time, begged his command to let him head into the incoming fire to help. 
 
 Four times he was denied his request before Meyer and another Marine, Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, jumped into the Humvee and headed into the fray. For his valor, Rodriguez-Chavez, a 34-year-old who hailed originally from Acuna, Mexico, would be awarded the Navy Cross. 
 
 "It's simple, you know. My guys were in there and they were in there fighting and I needed to be in the fight with them," Meyer told "The Early Show." 
 
 "I think all of us went in the valley, accepted we wouldn't make it out and that is just part of it." 
 
 With Meyer manning the Humvee's gun turret, the two drew heavy fire. But they began evacuating wounded Marines and American and Afghan soldiers to a safe point. Meyer made five trips into the kill zone, each time searching for the forward patrol with his Marine friends  including 1st Lt. Michael Johnson  whom Meyer had heard yelling on the radio for air support. 
 
 With Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez ready to test fate a fifth time in the kill zone, a UH-60 helicopter arrived at last to provide overhead support. Troops aboard the chopper told Meyer they had spotted what appeared to be four bodies. Meyer knew those were his friends and he had to bring them out. 
 
 "It might sound crazy, but it was just, you don't really think about it, you don't comprehend it, you don't really comprehend what you did until looking back on it," Meyer said. 
 
 Wounded and tired, Meyer left the relative safety of the Humvee and ran out on foot. 
 
 "He just really took a chance," Dwight Meyer said. 
 
 Ducking around buildings to avoid heavy gunfire, he reached the bodies of Johnson, a 25-year-old from Virginia Beach; Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick, 30, of Roswell, Ga.; Corpsman James Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif.; and Edwin Wayne Johnson Jr., a 31-year-old gunnery sergeant from Columbus, Ga. 
 
 Meyer and two other soldiers dodged bullets and rocket-propelled grenades to pull the bodies out of a ditch where the men had died while trying to take cover. 
 
 The deaths of Meyer's comrades prompted an investigation into events that day, and two Army officers were later reprimanded for being "inadequate and ineffective" and for "contributing directly to the loss of life." Along with Meyer's friends, a fifth American  Army Sgt. Kenneth W. Westbrook, 41, of Shiprock, N.M.  was fatally wounded in the ambush. 
 
 Meyer said he'll be humbled by the memory of his fallen comrades as he receives the award Thursday. One of the memorials will be at a Columbus cemetery for gunnery sergeant Johnson, a father of three who served nearly 13 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. 
 
 Will Duke, one of the organizers, said the memorials spoke volumes about Meyer. 
 
 "I can tell by his actions, not only the actions he took in earning the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan but also the actions he is taking now. Essentially by requesting these memorial services for his fallen comrades, he's saying this is about them," Duke said. 

 For A Marine Hero, A Medal Of Honor 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Anonymous/AP Anonymous/AP 
 
 Shortly after dawn on a September morning in 2009, American and Afghan troops set out on patrol along a rocky mile-long stretch in eastern Afghanistan. They were heading to a small village for a routine meeting with tribal elders. 
 
 Suddenly, everything went wrong. 
 
 Cpl. Dakota Meyer and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, who had stayed behind with the vehicles, heard small arms fire in the distance and knew instantly it was an ambush. Rodriguez-Chavez then heard an officer yelling for help on the radio. 
 
 "He said, 'I have wounded here. I need to get them out of here. If I don't get [backup] fires, we're all going to die here,' " Rodriguez-Chavez recalled. 
 
 So the Marines had to act. Meyer, then age 21, kept asking for permission to help the stranded troops, but the officers said no. 
 
 "And then finally, I requested one last time," he said. 
 
 Again, the answer was no. 
 
 So Meyer and Rodriguez-Chavez decided on the spot to disobey orders. 
 
 "He looks at me and says, 'Let's do it,' " Meyer said. 
 
 That decision was the start of a long day — a six-hour fight to save the trapped men. 
 
 Going Back, Again And Again 
 
 
 
 Rodriguez-Chavez hopped behind the wheel of a Humvee and drove straight into the ambush. Meyer climbed into the vehicle's gun turret and tried to pinpoint the elusive enemy. 
 
 But he said it was hard to identify the Taliban. "They look like normal people, and the next thing you know they're shooting at you," Meyer said. 
 
 It's kind of crazy, because everything slows down. It seems like it was forever and ever. And it starts running through your head: I'm never going to see my family again. 
 
 The Taliban fired mortars, and then rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire as the two Marines got closer. There were explosions and ricochets. The Humvee's side mirror was ripped off by the fire. The noise was deafening. 
 
 "Imagine one of those real loud firecrackers blowing up next to your ear," Rodriguez-Chavez said. 
 
 Yet Meyer kept firing back, with the shell casings from his machine gun spilling into the Humvee. 
 
 "It's kind of crazy, because everything slows down. It seems like it was forever and ever," Meyer said. "And it starts running through your head: I'm never going to see my family again." 
 
 Finally, they found a group of Afghan soldiers, the first men who'd been cut off. The two Americans piled the Afghans into the Humvee, including some who had been wounded. 
 
 As they dropped off the Afghan soldiers in a safe place, the Afghans warned the Americans, "Don't go back, don't go back." 
 
 But the two Marines did go back — again and again. 
 
 And Thursday at the White House, President Obama is awarding Cpl. Dakota Meyer with the Medal of Honor, making him the first living Marine to receive the award since the Vietnam War. 
 
 Rodriguez-Chavez already has been awarded the Navy Cross, the second-highest award for valor. 
 
 Surrounded By Taliban 
 
 
 
 Both men thought they were probably going to die that day. They remember having this exchange. 
 
 "Hey man, we'll probably get stuck out here," Rodriguez-Chavez said. 
 
 "We'll just die with them, because I can tell you right now they're not going to get out of here without us," said Meyer. 
 
 You feel like a failure. Why isn't that you being carried on that bird? Why are you standing here and they're not? 
 
 They drove back and forth five times, and Meyer in particular took chances, exposing himself repeatedly to enemy fire. At one point, he was hit in the right arm. 
 
 On the final run, it got worse. Rodriguez-Chavez heard a report over the radio. 
 
 "Like, hey man, you're getting surrounded," he was told. 
 
 And they were. Taliban fighters swarmed toward them — firing AK-47s. 
 
 Meyer shot at the Taliban, hitting one in the head and others in the body, Rodriguez-Chavez said. "From the front of the Humvee, they were maybe two or three feet," he said. 
 
 The Marines drove on to try to rescue the final group of troops. Nothing had been heard from them for hours. Meyer hoped they'd just lost radio contact. 
 
 "What I thought was they had probably pushed up in to a house and lost [communications], and they were just waiting on us to get in there," Meyer said. 
 
 A Dozen Marines, Two Dozen Afghan Soldiers Saved 
 
 
 
 It turned out these American troops were dead. But that didn't stop Meyer, who ran to retrieve the bodies. Taliban gunfire kicked up dirt around him. 
 
 Eventually they brought the bodies back to base. Meyer helped place his dead comrades on a helicopter. 
 
 After six hours, it was over. Meyer kept thinking one thing. 
 
 "You feel like a failure. Why isn't that you being carried on that bird? Why are you standing here and they're not?" Meyer said. 
 
 Meyer was anything but a failure. His actions, say military officials, saved more than a dozen Marines and two dozen Afghan soldiers. 
 
 Meyer was promoted to sergeant before he left the Marines, and is now living in his native Kentucky, where he is a construction worker. Rodriguez-Chavez is now a gunnery sergeant stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where he teaches troops how to drive Humvees and trucks.
– At just 21 years old, Dakota Meyer charged into a firefight in Afghanistan—five times—to save 36 lives from an ambush, and today he will become the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. But before the ceremony honoring his actions on September 8, 2009, Meyer wanted something else: the chance to have a beer with the president. They did just that on a patio outside the Oval Office yesterday, reports CBS News. During the meeting, Meyer asked the president for advice on how to achieve success. "He said, 'You know, first thing, get an education and he said just take it slow and don't try to make any rash decisions,'" Meyer tells CBS. Meyer, who was injured in the 2009 ambush, also pulled the bodies of dead comrades from the combat zone, NPR notes. He says that it's "really tough" to be recognized for what he calls the worst day of his life. During his ceremony, at his request, Meyer's fallen friends will also be remembered in hometown ceremonies.