Valley of Valor: The Battle of Ganjgal #3
The Battle of Ganjgal: A tale of courage, brotherhood, and the unyielding spirit of survival.
"They were surrounded by hundreds of Taliban fighters, outgunned, outnumbered, and fighting for their lives in a place the army itself had all but abandoned."- Jake Tapper, from The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor
After the Battle
As it turned out, Army Captain William Swenson and Marine Corporal Dakota Meyer had more in common than was apparent at first sight. In one of the deadliest and most intense small-arms battles of the Afghan-American War, both men braved overwhelming odds. They repeatedly ran through withering enemy gunfire to come to the aid of their Afghan and American brothers in arms. Neither thought there was much choice in the matter.
In the aftermath, five Americans lost their lives at the Battle of Ganjgal, including four members of Team Monti and Sergeant First Class Ken Westbrook, Swenson's advising teammate, who succumbed to his wounds a month later. Ten Afghan soldiers were also killed, and seventeen coalition members were wounded.
The Brotherhood
"I didn't just lose four guys that day, I lost ten brothers because the Afghans were just as close to me as any Marines I served with," Meyer said in a podcast. "The brotherhood I had with them is why I'm alive today."
When asked later, during an appearance at Loyola University, why he chose to return to the fight and face likely death repeatedly, Swenson thought for a moment. Then he insisted that it wasn't really a difficult decision. "Well, we were a team, and what seems like a bad idea now was the right to do then," he said, stressing that it was always devotion to the team that kept him going. "You have fellow service members who need your help, and that's your responsibility. You have to weigh that decision against potential outcomes and what the consequences might be, and then you make a decision. In that case, we made a decision to reenter the valley because that's what we were called to do."
Captain William Swenson became the first Army officer awarded the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. At just twenty-one years old during the Battle of Ganjgal, Corporal Dakota Meyer was one of the youngest recipients of the Medal of Honor in recent decades. Their medals represented one of only a few times in nearly half a century that the nation's highest award for valor was presented to two survivors of the same battle.
Struggles
Both William Swenson and Dakota Meyer also struggled with post-traumatic stress and demons they brought home from Afghanistan. Both have spoken publicly about that struggle to reduce the stigma and inspire other service members troubled by the memories of war to seek professional help.
In Meyer's case, his struggles with survival guilt over the failure to rescue his four friends on Team Monti nearly consumed him. In his book and subsequent interviews, he describes a dark, drunken night of the soul when he put a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger.
He only survived by the grace of a loved one with enough foresight to secretly remove the ammunition from his Glock pistol.
"From that moment I put away the pistol, I knew quitting wasn't right. Not that night. Not ever," said Meyer, who wears the names of his fallen teammates on two arm bracelets. "Any day I don't want to push on, I got four reasons right here- men who would switch with me on my worst day just to have one more day. So I'm not okay with letting their sacrifices go to waste."
Medals of Honor for Afghanistan
Of the 20 Medals of Honor awarded during Operation Enduring Freedom, 13 were earned in the unforgiving terrain of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces, along the rugged border with Pakistan. Known as the "Wild East," these provinces saw some of the fiercest combat in the war, with seven medals awarded for actions in Kunar and six in Nuristan. Five of the 20 awards were presented posthumously.
Assessment of the Battle
Extraordinary acts of courage, betrayal, and administrative failures marked the Battle of Ganjgal. It resulted in thirteen friendly fatalities, two investigations, reprimands for dereliction of duty, one Medal of Honor, and the loss of a second Medal of Honor recommendation. This tragic engagement is a microcosm of the war itself—highlighting a frustrating conflict, a flawed strategy, and the indomitable grit of the American warrior.
First, the frustrating war had no endpoint. By giving the Taliban a sanctuary, Pakistan ensured the war went on for two decades. Our soldiers fought only so that Afghan soldiers could eventually take over the fight- that never happened. Afghanistan was an elusive and maddening war, where the host government was unreliable and tribal loyalties were suspect.
In 2010, President Obama called Afghanistan the "good war," doubling troop numbers before eventually ordering a withdrawal. Initially, U.S. forces put the Taliban on the defensive, but with unclear objectives, the war was doomed to stagnate. The repeated failures of irregular wars reflect a fundamental tension: America, a nation driven by success, struggled with a conflict that had no clear victory.
The U.S. never established a permanent outpost in the Ganjgal Valley. Taliban commander Qari Zia Ur-Rahman, responsible for the attack, took credit for the victory, circulating photos of equipment seized from the fallen soldiers of Team Monti. Despite a $350,000 bounty on his head, Rahman remained in power for years, a testament to the enduring strength of tribal loyalties and the Taliban's foothold along Afghanistan's 1,500-mile border. Â
We should have deployed thousands of advisors like Meyer and Swenson to train Afghan soldiers and then left. Instead, our generals focused on winning the "hearts and minds" of tribesmen hurtling headlong into the ninth century. This policy decision resulted in top-down rules of engagement that paralyzed mid-level staffs like the TOC at FOB Joyce. The ROE (Rules of Engagement) "expressly prohibited" air or artillery strikes unless the ground commander had "positively identified enemy forces within a residential compound."
The senior command had issued restrictive ROEs without addressing who had the authority to make the final decision. Captain Swenson believed he had the right to assume the role of ground commander and make the decisions. The staff back at the ops center in Joyce overrode his fire requests. Authority was diffuse, and no single person was held accountable. What a mess!
Gen. Colin Powell, widely admired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the early 1990s, had a strong opinion about command decision-making. "The commander in the field is always right, and the rear echelon is wrong unless proved otherwise," he wrote. "In my experience, the people closest to the problems are often in the best position to see the solutions. The key here is to empower and not be the bottleneck."
The Battle of Ganjgal's most powerful theme is the American warrior's sheer grit. Under fire, many soldiers hit the dirt. Some shoot back. But only a select few charge forward. Meyer and Swenson's courage was exceptional, not because they charged once but because they did so repeatedly. Each time, they had the chance to rethink their actions—but instead, they chose to keep going, driven by the need to help their comrades.
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