Who Is Dakota Meyer? Bristol Palin Engaged To Medal Of Honor Recipient

Bristol Palin, 24, daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, reality TV personality and one time drunken house party brawler, announced on her blog she is engaged to Dakota Meyer, 26. "He’s so romantic!" wrote Palin, introducing Meyer as Sgt. Dakota Meyer. "He asked me to marry him at a Rascal Flatts concert. The lead singer, Gary LeVox, dedicated 'Bless the Broken Road' to us, and then Dakota got down on one knee and proposed!"

But who is Sgt. Dakota Meyer? The former Marine received the Congressional Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest military honor -- in 2011 for risking his life recovering 36 American and Afghan troops in Afghanistan in 2009. He was the third living recipient and first Marine to receive the medal. Meyer also wrote a memoir, with Bing West, called "Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War," published in 2013, which recounted his experiences in the Battle of Ganjigal.

The pair met last year when Meyer went to Alaska to film Sarah Palin's show on Sportsman Channel, "Amazing America," CNN reported. The two kept in touch, and visited each other's families. Bristol was particularly emphatic that Meyer and her 6-year-old son Tripp, to whose father, Levi Johnston, she was engaged to for a time, got along well. "He's wonderful with Tripp and I'm so proud to be marrying him," she wrote on her blog.

Meyer, Sarah Palin noted, "flew up North" to ask Bristol Palin's father and grandfather for permission to marry her.

"Our families couldn't be happier for Bristol and Dakota!" Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook. "We're honored to welcome Dakota into our family. He's an American hero and patriot whose service to our country -- like all his fellow Medal of Honor recipients -- has been above and beyond the call of duty; but even more important is he's a good and kind man who loves Bristol and Tripp, and is loved by them."