Battle of Ganjgal: Medal of Honor Winner Recounts the Taliban Ambush and a Greeting of Machine Gun, RPGs and AK-47 Fire

By J.D. Leipold, Army News Service Capt William D. Swenson

Capt. William D. Swenson (far right) talks with Soldiers while in support of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) in Afghanistan. Swenson served as an embedded trainer and mentor for the Afghan Border Police. He has received the Medal of Honor, Oct. 15, 2013, for his actions Sept. 8, 2009, in the Battle of Ganjgal, in eastern Afghanistan.

Just before dawn Sept. 8, 2009 and under a full moon, Capt. William D. Swenson and a contingent of Afghan forces made their way slowly on foot, crunching the gravel under their boots through a mountain valley in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, not far from the Pakistan border.

With one tour in Iraq and on his second deployment to Afghanistan, Swenson was serving as an embedded advisor for the Afghan Border Police. He points out that as an advisor, he wasn't there to lead the Afghan police or the Afghan National Army soldiers, known as the ANA.

"With the Afghans, one cannot overtly lead — they are their own military, independently run by their own leadership, but you can also influence them with advice and your presence," Swenson said. "Show your professionalism to them, then you exhibit leadership when they don't even know it's there. They'll follow your example, your character, so was I leading anyone? No. Was I offering an example for them to follow, yes."

Swenson, in support of the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), was leading an Afghan Border Police, or ABP, Mentor Team, working directly with just one other American Soldier, colleague and friend Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook. Together the two were mentoring along with a US Marine embedded training team, or ETT, under a different chain of command. Even so, Swenson said the Soldiers and Marines worked very closely together, harmonizing and collaborating on similar objectives.

This was a routine mission — Operation Buri Booza II — one like the Afghan soldiers and police as well as the Americans had done dozens of times before. The column of 106 troops moved from the Observational Rally Point towards the village. The road they trekked melded into a boulder-ridden, gravel-strewn washout which led directly to the hillside village made up of thick-walled mud buildings with mud-thatched roofs. Swenson recalled the village structures had the appearance of World War II pillboxes with small, narrow, slit openings.

At the washout, about half the coalition and Afghan National Security Forces, known as ANSF, split off to the north and south to establish support positions. Swenson and Westbrook continued toward the valley with the remaining troops.

At the front of the column approaching the village were four ETTs -- three Marines and a Navy Corpsman -- and their ANA counterpart. Behind them was the command element, or Tactical Action Center, referred to as the TAC, led by Maj. Kevin Williams and consisting of 1st Lt. Ademola D. Fabayo, a Marine ETT operations officer; First Sgt. Christopher Garza, ETT first sergeant; an ANA radio telephone operator, or RTO; and Jonathan Landay, an embedded reporter with the Marine ETT. To the rear of the TAC and their ANA counterparts were Swenson and Westbrook, with their ABP counterparts.

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Battle of Ganjgal: Medal of Honor Winner Recounts the Taliban Ambush and a Greeting of Machine Gun, RPGs and AK-47 Fire

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