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William Swenson: The Soldier Who Went Back In, and the Packet That Vanished

William D. Swenson did everything his country asked, and then he did the thing his country later put on film: he went back in. This page is the documented record of what he did in the Ganjgal Valley on September 8, 2009, what his own institution did with the paperwork afterward — it lost it — and how long it took, and who had to apologize, before the record was set straight.

The service, and the promise

William Swenson grew up in Seattle and graduated from Seattle University in 2001 with a degree in political science. He was commissioned through Officer Candidate School as an Army infantry officer in September 2002, completed Ranger School and Airborne School, and deployed three times — once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan. By 2009 he held the Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.

On his second Afghanistan tour he was a captain detailed as an embedded adviser to the Afghan National Border Police, with Task Force Phoenix, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, in support of 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. His job was to mentor Afghan forces — to stand beside them, not behind them.

The promise made to men like William Swenson is the oldest one in the profession: no one is left behind. What follows is what that promise looked like when he kept it — and what it looked like when the institution that sent him did not keep its side of it.

What happened — September 8, 2009

Around sunrise on September 8, 2009, a combined column of Afghan soldiers, Afghan Border Police, and their American advisers moved on foot toward the village of Ganjgal in Kunar Province, near the Pakistan border, for a meeting with village elders. As the column reached the outskirts, more than 60 well-armed, well-positioned enemy fighters ambushed it, in the words of Swenson’s Medal of Honor citation, unleashing “a barrage of rocket-propelled grenade, mortar and machine gun fire” from three sides.

What the citation records, and what President Obama retold at the White House four years later, is this:

The citation credits his leadership across six hours of continuous fighting with rallying his teammates, disrupting the enemy assault, and saving more than a dozen American and Afghan lives. Westbrook reached Walter Reed, but died on October 7, 2009, of complications from his wounds. In all, five Americans, eight Afghan soldiers, and an Afghan interpreter were killed.

Swenson was not the only man honored for that day. Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, fighting not far away, received the Medal of Honor in 2011, and two other Marines — Capt. Ademola Fabayo and Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez — received the Navy Cross. Their accounts of the battle differ in emphasis, as accounts of a six-hour ambush do. This page stays on Swenson’s documented record: the citation, the investigations, and the services’ own words.

What the institution did afterward

Swenson told investigators, on the record, that the men at Ganjgal had been let down. “The fire support was not immediate and the absence of indirect fires and smoke for obscuration made it impossible to break contact with the enemy,” he said in a statement later quoted in the Defense Department inspector general’s review. A joint Army–Marine investigation agreed in substance: it found that three Army officers at Forward Operating Base Joyce, from Task Force Chosin, had shown negligent leadership that contributed directly to the loss of life, and two of the three received formal reprimands.

The Army’s treatment of Swenson’s own record was worse than negligent. It was absent.

On October 15, 2013 — four years and one month after the battle — President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to Swenson in the East Room of the White House. He was the sixth living recipient for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first living Army officer to receive it since Vietnam, and, with Meyer, part of only the second pair of survivors of the same battle to receive it in nearly half a century. Obama called him “the soldier who went back in.” Swenson’s own words that day were about everyone else: “This award is earned with a team, a team of our finest Marines, Army, Air Force, Navy and our Afghan partners standing side by side. Now that team includes Gold Star families who lost their fathers, sons, and husbands that day. This medal represents them, it represents us.”

The next day, at his induction into the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, the institution apologized — twice, on the record. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: “We’re sorry that you and your family had to endure through that, but you did and you handled it right.” Secretary of the Army John McHugh acknowledged the Army had lost Swenson’s packet and announced a new directive: every Medal of Honor nomination would now be sent immediately to Army Human Resources Command, each step of review forwarded as well, with follow-up every 30 days until final review — “to ensure that no future award packet is lost along the way.” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno praised the very candor that had made Swenson inconvenient: “Even after the battle, Will was not afraid to point out deficiencies in the operation that caused difficulties in obtaining the appropriate and timely support necessary.”

The final accounting came in May 2014, when the Defense Department’s inspector general released its review of the loss. It faulted the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan awards section for failing to forward the recommendation after Petraeus’s review and for failing to track or report its status — conduct “inconsistent” with the regulation requiring Medal of Honor recommendations to be routed on a priority basis. It found inadequate systems and unreliable processes, noted testimony that the headquarters “frequently lost awards,” and recorded that some Kabul award files may have been lost in a 2012 computer upgrade. It found no evidence that a senior official had intentionally mishandled or destroyed the packet, and it held that Petraeus’s downgrade recommendation was within his discretion — while also recording that the evidence Petraeus had received and acted on the recommendation outweighed his own testimony that he did not recall seeing it. No individual was held accountable for losing it. Swenson’s disappointment at exactly that point is on the record.

Where it stands now

Swenson asked to return to the Army. His request, made in October 2013, was granted on March 14, 2014, when he returned to active duty as a plans officer at I Corps headquarters at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington — the institution that had lost his packet taking back the officer who had told it, in writing, what it had done wrong. He continued to serve, and the Congressional Medal of Honor Society lists lieutenant colonel as his highest rank.

The process he forced into the open stayed changed. The Army’s 2013 directive — immediate visibility at headquarters, a copy at every step, a check every 30 days — was written because of his case, and the Pentagon’s later department-wide tightening of valor-award timelines was motivated in part by it as well, Military.com reported in 2016, citing the 19-month loss.

That is the pattern this site exists to document. The medal was earned in six hours. Getting his country to process the paperwork took four years, a rebuilt packet, a reporter’s investigations, a congressman’s pressure, a fellow recipient’s advocacy, two cabinet-level apologies, and an inspector general’s report — and even then, the official finding names a section, a system, and a process. Behind every single institutional failure, Swenson said, there’s a name. The record still does not give one for his.

The ledger

The accounting, in three lines — what the record shows has been done, what it shows has not, and what is still being sought.

What has been done

What has not been done

What is being sought

The record, on video

Part of Swenson’s action survives on film — the medevac crew’s helmet cameras caught the moment at the helicopter — so this page lets the record speak in its own medium. Five films: the ceremony, the Army’s tribute, the reporting that carried the footage and the wait, Swenson in his own words, and the battle rebuilt.

The ceremony. President Obama presents the Medal of Honor in the East Room on October 15, 2013 — four years after Ganjgal. (The Obama White House.)

The tribute. The Army's own film of Swenson's story, released ahead of the ceremony — the citation told by the service that had lost it. (U.S. Army.)

The wait, reported. CNN's account on the eve of the ceremony — the heroism, the helmet-camera footage, and the years it took to be recognized. (CNN.)

In his own words. Swenson describes watching the helmet-camera video of the moment he kissed Kenneth Westbrook's forehead in the middle of the fight. (CBS News.)

The reconstruction. CBS's 60 Minutes rebuilds Ganjgal — the denied requests for support and the drives back into the valley — told chiefly through Dakota Meyer, whose Medal of Honor came two years before Swenson's. (CBS News.)

Sources

Further record

Part of Betrayed, Not Forgotten — this site's accounting for the service members and veterans their own institutions failed. Videos are embedded from their publishers; nothing here is re-hosted.