The Marine leader, Williams, had been shot in the arm and his first sergeant, Garza, had eardrums ruptured by an RPG. The wounded were accumulating. Unable to physically evacuate the wounded down the steep terraces and out of the kill zone, Swenson coordinated for combat helicopter support, then learned his partner Westbrook had been isolated and lay in the open, suffering a chest wound.

Negotiating 50 meters of open space, Swenson, Garza and Fabayo quickly covered ground, zig-zagging and returning fire as they raced for Westbrook. Despite the maelstrom of direct fire which had killed two ANA soldiers and wounded three others, the team was holding their own in the kill zone.

As Swenson administered first aid and kept in radio contact with the helos he'd called for, Fabayo saw three insurgents moving from a house to within 50 meters of the TAC. Fabayo made direct visual contact with one insurgent wearing fatigues, body armor and a helmet who began waving at him and demanding surrender. Fabayo called to Swenson about the insurgent's demands. The captain calmly put down his radio, halted the first aid and replied with a personal message by throwing a hand grenade.

Having witnessed Swenson's example, the ANA soldiers and policemen of the TAC rallied to push the insurgents back and beyond hand grenade range. At about the same time, a team of OH-58D Kiowa Scout helicopters carrying a combination of missiles, rockets and .50-caliber machine guns came on scene.

"We did receive our aviation support, the Kiowas," Swenson recalled. "They're aggressive, like little bees, they swarm all over the place, quick, nimble. The enemy knows when helicopters show up, it's in their best interests to find somewhere to hide. If the enemy is out in the open, they'll be found and that will be a bad day for them."

The arrival of the Scouts gave the TAC the time it needed to move Westbrook and other wounded down the steep terraces to the Afghan Border Police trucks, which then carried the wounded to a landing zone where a UH-60 Black Hawk medevac waited.

Swenson and Fabayo then manned one of the unarmored ABP Rangers and re-entered the kill zone twice to evacuate wounded and bringing them to a casualty collection point. Next Swenson and Fabayo went in search of the missing Marines, while staying in constant contact with one of the helicopters, which was also trying to locate them.

At the same time, Marines Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez and Cpl. Dakota Meyer were retrieving wounded in an up-armored Humvee. By 8 a.m., and still no contact with the forward element and their truck on its last legs, Swenson called in a Combat Search and Rescue helicopter, but it became clear the LZ was too close to enemy positions and RPG teams.

Ground recovery of all remaining casualties would be the only way to do the job and it would mean moving into the kill zone again. Swenson called a quick planning session at the casualty collection point and made the decision that he, Fabayo, Rodriguez-Chavez and Meyer, with a small contingent of ANSF following, would move toward the village to search for the still-missing Marines and their corpsman.

Around noon, the CSAR helo spotted the location of the missing five men who had all been killed in an open courtyard area, then stripped of their armor and clothing. As the bird tried to land, it was forced out by close RPG fire. Swenson called for smoke to mark the location of the bodies and to provide cover for Swenson's up-armored Humvee to get in to extract the fallen.

As their Humvee climbed to the top of the hill with Fabayo operating the M240 machine gun and the vehicle coming under heavy fire, the Kiowa helicopters continued to suppress known and suspected insurgent strongholds. Coming to a stop adjacent to the forward group's position, Swenson and Meyer, along with help from ANA soldiers and border police, found and removed the bodies from a deep trench. The casualties were placed in the back of an ANA Humvee as Fabayo and Rodriguez-Chavez provided covering fire.

Recovery complete, the Humvees drove back down the wash and straight to the rally point to verify accountability of all ANSF soldiers.

A mission that started as one of good will became a struggle for survival. The immediate cost to the coalition was the loss of four Americans and eight ANA soldiers. The battle would eventually cost one more American life.

Westbrook was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and seemed on the verge of recovery then complications developed as the result of a blood transfusion in Afghanistan, which initially saved his life. He passed away Oct. 7, a month following the battle. His wife, Charlene, said she was grateful to Swenson for all he did in giving her husband the extra time to spend with family. On April 19 of this year, his family was presented a posthumous Silver Star for his gallantry during the battle.

The end of that long day in September four years ago was not the conclusion of the Battle of Ganjgal, Swenson said, "that happened later when US and Afghan forces came together on a larger scale.

"Relief forces came from Jalalabad, from Asmar, from all over Afghanistan," he said. "There was loss, terrible loss, but we brought forces in to continue that mission, to finish that mission, to clear that village, and to show what our resolve was and what our response would be.

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