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WASHINGTON) — President Obama presented former Marine Dakota Meyer with the Medal of Honor at the White House Thursday, making Meyer the first living Marine to receive the Medal of Honor for heroism in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The former Marine sergeant, who shared a beer with the president at the White House Wednesday, insists he is not a hero for repeatedly rushing into heavy enemy fire in an attempt to rescue four missing U.S. servicemembers pinned down in an intense hours-long ambush in eastern Afghanistan on Sept. 8, 2009. Fighting through a piece of shrapnel that had injured his arm, Meyer later reached the four only to find that they had died in the fighting.

At Thursday’s ceremony President Obama called it “fitting” that the ceremony should take place the same week as the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that led to the war in Afghanistan.

Obama described the 23-year-old as representing “the best of a generation that has served with distinction through a decade of war.”

“You did your duty above and beyond, and you kept the faith with the highest traditions of the Marine Corps you love,” said Obama.

Obama called Meyer “one of the most down to earth guys that you will ever meet.” He noted that when the White House contacted him to arrange the president’s phone call to inform him he was to receive the award, he asked that it be scheduled for his lunch hour from his construction job because he said, “if I don’t work, I don’t get paid.”

“I do appreciate, Dakota, you taking my call,” joked President Obama.

Meyer becomes the 10th recipient of the nation’s highest award for valor in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; all but two have been presented posthumously. Army soldiers Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta and Sgt. First Class Leroy Petry are the only other living recipients of the award.

In an interview with ABC’s Bob Woodruff that aired Thursday night on ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer, Meyer says that if he was faced with the same situation again, “I would do it a hundred times” though he would change only one thing: ”I wish I could have kept them alive.”

He insists he is not a hero, but was only doing “what Marines do…I’m the furthest thing from a hero,” he says, “if this is what it feels like to be a hero you can have it.” He adds, “What gives me the right to be standing here today and not their kids? I feel like I failed them and I failed their families.”

Meyer wears bracelets with the names of the four Americans killed in Ganjgal that day and feels some guilt that he survived the battle.

“I guess what’s stuck in my mind is you either get guys out alive or you die trying, if you didn’t die trying, you didn’t try hard enough,” he says.

Now living on his grandparents’ farm in rural Kentucky, Meyer says that he would return to active duty “in a heartbeat” if he could be promised a return to combat “fighting with Marines.”