I have devoted recent Profiles of Valor to several Global War on Terror Medal of Honor recipients who continued active duty service after receiving their awards. They are: Sgt Dakota Meyer (USMC), who returned to duty at age 36 after being honorably discharged in 2010, and both Army SGM Thomas Payne and Command Sergeant Major Matthew Williams, who remained on active duty after receiving their awards.

The fourth and final recent recipient who remained on active duty is LTC William Swenson.

Will Swenson is a native of Washington State and graduated from Seattle University just before the 9/11 Islamist attack on our nation. As with many young people at the time, that attack was a motivating factor for his joining the Army.

He commissioned as an Army infantry officer a year after 9/11, then he completed Basic and Advanced Infantry Officer Courses, Ranger School, Airborne School, and the Infantry Maneuver Captains Career Course at Ft. Benning. He then deployed three times, once to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and twice to Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom.

He would distinguish himself in combat on 8 September 2009 as a Captain assigned to Task Force Phoenix, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. He was an Embedded Trainer with the Afghan Border Police and part of an operation to establish connections and continuity between the Afghan government and native elders in Eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

On that September day, his coalition force of 106 mostly Afghan men was ambushed at dawn by 60 enemy insurgents as they entered the Ganjgal Valley. They were soon surrounded by insurgents who had the high ground. After the first intense hour of combat, coms to the front of his column were lost. Swenson was toward the rear of the column, calling for air and artillery support as he and two other Americans crossed 50 meters of open ground under enemy fire in order to administer first aid to his severely wounded sergeant and close friend, Kenneth Westbrook.

As the enemy forces closed to within 50 meters of their position, demanding the Americans and Afghans surrender, Swenson answered that demand by defiantly throwing a grenade into the enemy line and rallying his troops to repel the insurgent advance so he and others could move the wounded to the arriving medevac helicopters.

Swenson would return through the “kill zone” at least two more times in order to reach and evacuate both Americans and Afghan forces who were closer to the enemy line. The six-hour firefight would result in 15 coalition deaths, four of whom were Americans.

At the time of the battle, Swenson was recommended for a Medal of Honor by his battalion commander, but that recommendation was “lost” in the Pentagon bureaucracy, likely because of his unflinching criticism of senior officers for denying the artillery fire he requested to push back the enemy line. Barack Obama’s CIA appointee, GEN David Petraeus, who was a senior Army commander at the time of Swenson’s criticism, wanted the award downgraded.

Indeed, Swenson had issued a sworn statement criticizing the lack of artillery and air support during the battle despite his repeated calls for artillery. “That was supposed to be laid down between us and the enemy so we could get up and move off the battlefield without being clear targets,” Swenson said. “If I call for artillery support, I do so understanding the possibility of civilian casualties. But that’s my decision. That’s my responsibility, my call — by doctrine — not somebody who is sitting several kilometers away.”

After two Army officers were reprimanded for being “inadequate and ineffective” and for “contributing directly to the loss of life” in the Ganjgal Valley battle, Swenson was vindicated.

His MoH recommendation case was reopened in 2011, the year Swenson separated from the service, by Marine Corps Gen John Allen. Marine Dakota Meyer, who also received his Medal of Honor for his role with Swenson evacuating the wounded under heavy direct enemy fire, was a strong advocate for Will. Dakota detailed Will’s actions in his book, Into the Fire, noting that if not for Swenson, he would not have survived the Ganjgal Valley battle.

The full account of Will’s actions are detailed in his Medal of Honor citation, which notes in part: “With complete disregard for his own safety, Captain Swenson unhesitatingly led a team in an unarmored vehicle into the kill zone, exposing himself to enemy fire on at least two occasions, to recover the wounded and search for four missing comrades. … Captain Swenson’s team returned to the kill zone another time in a Humvee. Captain Swenson voluntarily exited the vehicle, exposing himself to enemy fire, to locate and recover three fallen Marines and one fallen Navy corpsman. His exceptional leadership and stout resistance against the enemy during six hours of continuous fighting rallied his teammates and effectively disrupted the enemy’s assault.”

Notably, there was live feed footage of Swenson’s actions recorded by a camera on one of the responding medevac helicopters — the first time actions that would lead to a Medal of Honor have been recorded. Close footage was also recorded on American service personnel helmet cameras.

Among the helmet cam recordings during the battle, there were a few minutes of video detailing Swenson’s interactions with his aforementioned sergeant, Westbrook. Earlier, as Swenson recalls, “He called out to me and said, ‘Will, I’ve been hit.’ I was pinned down at the time, and I said, ‘All right, hang in there.’ He yelled out again, ‘Will, I’m losing it. I’m losing blood. Can’t keep doing this.’”

Once Swenson got Westbrook to the medevac helicopter, a helmet cam caught him leaning in and kissing his friend on the forehead, assuring him he was going home. It was a moment amid combat chaos that vividly demonstrates the humanity of brotherhood, and those who have been there will recognize this moment at a level only a combat Vet can fully comprehend.

Will never saw Ken again, saying, “One month later, he passed away at Walter Reed.” He said at least his wife, Charlene, and their three sons, Zachary, Joshua, and Joseph, “had a month to spend with Ken, who for a while was on the mend — he had the opportunity to be with his family.”

At his 2013 Medal of Honor ceremony, Swenson said to those in attendance: “I look at this crowd and I see the strength of a nation and I see the strength of a fighting force, one that I fought proudly with. I look at my fellow Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force, a team that I fought side-by-side with as brothers. It’s the proudest moment of my life and I’m honored and privileged to know these men.”

At his Pentagon Hall of Heroes induction following his MoH ceremony, regarding the 19-month delay of his recommendation, Secretary of the Army John McHugh declared there would be greater oversight to “ensure that no future award packet is lost along the way or paperwork misplaced or somehow forgotten in the fog of war.” Or in Swenson’s case, packet delays by a prima donna general officer who didn’t take earned criticism well.

Though Swenson had left the Army two years before his award ceremony, he petitioned for a return to active duty, and in March 2014, he was recalled and served as a plans officer at the I Corps headquarters until his recent retirement.

You can watch Will Swenson address students at Loyola University about his actions and leadership.

LTC William Swenson: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.

“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Live your life worthy of his sacrifice.

(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

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