Former U.S. Marine and Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer is suing a former employer, defense contractor BAE Systems OASYS Inc., because the company slandered his character after he tried to get a job, according to reports.

According to wired.com, Meyer quit BAE because the company considered selling advanced thermal optic sniper rifle scopes to the Pakistani military. Then, when he decided to take a job with his old defense firm, Ausgar Technologies, Meyer didn't get the job because his old BAE supervisor, Bobby McCreight, allegedly e-mailed a Defense Department acquisition official to say Meyer was traumatized from combat, which made him mentally unstable, and had a drinking problem.

The Wall Street Journal's Julian Barnes reports that the lawsuit, filed in a Texas state court, said that after leaving active duty in May 2010, Meyer joined Ausgar, a defense contractor that hires veterans to train active-duty service members. There, he helped teach U.S. soldiers to use thermal imaging to spot roadside bombs. Less than a year later, in March 2011, Meyer joined BAE Systems. The suit doesn't make clear the exact nature of his job there.

Soon after he learned what was happening, Meyer voiced his disdain about BAE selling the scopes to Pakistan by sending an e-mail to McCreight.

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, Meyer wrote, according to the lawsuit. These are the same people killing our guys.

According to ABCnews.com, Meyer gave his two-week notice in May 2011 to BAE, applied to return to Ausgar and was even approved by the U.S. government for the job. However, the Ausgar hiring manager informed Meyer that he would not be hired because of what McCreight, a former Marine himself, had said.

[BAE is] incredibly grateful to Dakota Meyer for his valiant service and bravery above and beyond the call of duty, said Vice President Brian Roehrkasse to Reuters. Although we strongly disagree with his claims, which we intend to vigorously defend through the appropriate legal process, we wish him success and good fortune in all his endeavors.

Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest honor for valor, by President Barack Obama at the White House in September, making him the first living Marine since the Vietnam War to receive the Medal of Honor, according to Reuters.

He was part of a U.S. patrol team training Afghan security forces and saved 36 of his comrades' lives in a 2009 ambush of more than 50 Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, reports said.

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