MILITARY MOUNTAINEERS MEMORIAL BRICKS SECTION C

MEDAL OF HONOR CITATION:
On September 8, 2009, Swenson was part of an operation to connect the Afghan government with native elders in the Ganjgal Valley in Eastern Kunar Province in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.

According to the U.S. Army’s detailed Official Narrative, the coalition force’s 106-man column entered the valley and was ambushed at about 6 a.m. by as many as 60 insurgent fighters who soon surrounded the column on three sides, situated on terraced high ground. Within an hour, communication to the front of the column, including four U.S. servicemen, was lost. Meanwhile, Captain Swenson, who initially was positioned toward the rear of the column, called for air support, and with two comrades crossed 50 meters of open space under direct enemy fire to administer life-extending first aid to his severely wounded sergeant. When the column was surrounded by enemy fighters that advanced within 50 meters, Swenson responded to Taliban demands for surrender by throwing a hand grenade, an act of defiance that rallied his comrades to repel the enemy advance.

Swenson and comrades moved his sergeant and other wounded to a helicopter for medical evacuation before returning to the enemy’s “kill zone” for at least two more trips in an unarmored vehicle to evacuate additional wounded. Returning even more deeply through the kill zone toward the location of the head of column in search of the four U.S. servicemen, Swenson’s party first rescued and recovered several Afghan National Security Force wounded and dead. Finally, Swenson and a small contingent recovered the four fallen U.S. servicemen who had been discovered by a search and rescue aircraft at noon. The 6–7 hour firefight caused 15 coalition deaths, including the four U.S. servicemen; also, Swenson’s sergeant, Kenneth Westbrook, died of his wounds after returning from Afghanistan. Swenson’s actions are believed to have directly contributed to saving more than a dozen Afghan lives.

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