Bearing both the Medal of Honor and trauma

(CBS News) Starting over after a traumatic event is never an easy task, not even for a young man this nation honors as a hero. Our Cover Story is reported by National Security Correspondent David Martin:

For Dakota Meyer, the Medal of Honor is a full-time job, which keeps him on the road 20 or more days each month.

... As when he appeared at a job fair for veterans in Quantico, Va.:

"When they told me that I would be receiving the Medal of Honor I told them that I didn't want it, because I don't feel like a hero," Meyer said. "But then the president said something to me: 'It's bigger than you.' And I never really thought about that until afterward, and it is bigger than me."

Behind that jaunty air lies some of the toughest lessons any young man ever had to learn.

First, there was the battle in a remote Afghan valley for which he received the medal - a bloody, five-hour firefight which left four Marines and one soldier dead.

Meyer called it the worst day of his life - "A day that has forever changed my life."

Meyer and his fellow Marines drove into a gauntlet of fire from up to 100 insurgents. He went back again and again, trying to reach buddies trapped in the ambush. But he didn't get there in time. And he has been haunted by that ever since.

"I can never forget that I'm a failure, and it's in the face of the nation, not just me."

At last September's Medal of Honor ceremony President Obama described Meyer's actions in heroic terms: "Today we pay tribute to an American who placed himself in the thick of the fight - again and again and again."

In his own book, called "Into the Fire," Meyer describes a brutal battle to the death.

"How many do you think you killed?" Martin asked.

"It doesn't make a difference. I can tell you this, I didn't kill enough," he replied. One he killed with his bare hands.

It is not mentioned in his Medal of Honor citation because there were no witnesses, but as Meyer describes it he was kneeling over the body of Dodd Ali, an Afghan soldier and one of his best friends.

"I just felt something hit me in the back of the head, and it was just slow motion the whole time," Meyer recalled. "And I just remember turning around to look and there was a guy standing above me with a huge beard, you know, and he had an AK-47 and I was, What do I do now?"

Meyer knew one thing: "I was going to make the son of a bitch kill me. I wasn't gonna go get my head chopped off on TV."

He fired from the hip.

"I remember squeezing the trigger on my 203 and it hit the guy right in the chest." Meyer said.

"203 is the grenade launcher," Martin said, and "the grenade didn't go off."

"No."

With the unexploded grenade lodged between them the two men fought hand-to-hand.

"I just remember my hand grabbing a rock," he continued. "And finally I got him . . . I couldn't stop, like, I just, it's like all the anger from that day it just went straight into him. I just couldn't do enough to get rid of this guy."

None of it was enough to save his buddies. And when the battle was over Meyer was filled with grief for his lost men, and rage that air and artillery support which had been promised was too long in coming.

The Marines decided they had to get him out of Afghanistan.

Meyer said he was sent home early, being told that he was "wound too tight. . . What they wanted to do for precautionary measures was send me to, you know, just get some help for PTSD rehab center."

Meyer got some post-traumatic stress counseling, and moved back in with his father, Mike, on the farm where he grew up in the Kentucky hills.

"You come home to this peaceful place in the country," said Martin. "About as far removed from war as you can get. What was it like coming home?"

"A shocker," Meyer said. "It's hard living here. It's easy fighting, you know, 'cause it's, it's simple. Like, war simplifies life in my mind."

Meyer was home, but his father could see the war was still with his son.

Meyer's father said Dakota asked for new locks on the doors. "Make sure the house was locked up every night. . . . He'd always want to have one or two guns in every vehicle."

"So he always wanted a weapon close," he said, noting that for three months Meyer slept with a weapon - a pistol on his chest.

"Did you try to talk to anybody about it?" Martin asked.

"What's there to talk about?" Dakota replied.

"Get it out of your own mind and into somebody else's?"

"You know, why bother somebody else with it?" Meyer said. "It's just part of it."

Believing he had become a burden to his family, Dakota turned to the bottle. One night driving home he stopped his truck and pulled out a gun.

"I was just like, 'Now I'm done.' And I always kept my pistol in my Trailblazer. I squeeze the trigger and [was] amazed that . . .there was nothing in it."

"You put the gun to your head, and pulled the trigger?" asked Martin.

"Yeah. Click. That's the loudest click you'll ever hear."

"Do you know why there wasn't a round in that chamber?"

"You could state the obvious reason, that somebody took it out."

After the click, Meyer said, he sobered up instantly.

Was that the low point? Martin asked. "Oh, yeah, you don't, you don't get any lower than that," he replied.

Trying to put his life back together, Meyer cut back on the drinking and went to work doing construction. Eighteen months later, the White House contacted him to say the President wanted to talk about the Medal of Honor.

"They told me, well, you know, 'You'll be receiving a phone call, and that you need to be on a landline an hour prior, com checks every 15 minutes.' And I said, 'Hey, I can't do that.' 'Well, why not?' 'Well, I have to work. But he can call my cell phone.'"

President Obama recalled, "So we arranged to make sure he got the call during his lunch break. Dakota is the kind of guy who gets the job done. And I do appreciate, Dakota, you taking my call!" he laughed.

He did more than that. He asked if he could come over for a beer. Sitting in the Rose Garden he asked his Commander in Chief what he should do with his life.

"Whether you support him or not, nobody can ever look at him and say he's not a successful man. So that's what I just wanted to ask him, you know, what are some tips to be successful."

"And what did he tell you?" Martin asked.

"He emphasized on education," Meyer said.

Since then, he's set up a scholarship fund for children of wounded Marines. So far he has raised $1.2 million. "We're giving out 10 scholarships this year," he said.

When tornadoes ripped through West Liberty, Ky., Meyer and his buddies used their own money to rent heavy equipment to help dig out the victims.

He's still a 20-something whose idea of a good time is zipping across the family farm in his ATV. But he's a 20-something with a highway named after him, and a tribute to his medal in the middle of town.

If you think that's living the dream, take a look at Meyer's blog from last May:

"They say time heals all wounds but for me, it seems . . . the more time that has passed, the harder it gets . . . My brothers, my best friends are gone . . . Gone forever. "

"I have four guys, my team, who died that day, that hold me accountable, and as long as they're not looking at me saying, 'Dakota, what are you doing?' And that's all that matters."

"What do you think they're thinking about you?" asked Martin.

"They're with me every day. You know, I think they're standing next to me, pushing me on."

For more info:

• "Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War" by Dakota Meyer and Bing West (Random House)
• dakotameyer.com