Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War

by Bing West

  That evening, I sat in a chair outside the Oval Office looking at the Washington Monument and sipping an ale with the most powerful man in the world. It was irrelevant that my political philosophy was quite different from his. He was my commander-in-chief, and he was extremely gracious.

  “What’s on your mind, Dakota?” the president said.

  I told him I didn’t have any idea what to do with my life.

  His advice was to never stop studying and learning. Education was a lifelong undertaking.

  He also observed how he missed the normal things in life, like going to the store to buy shaving cream. He was my commander-in-chief, and he was conveying what was expected of me. I understood his subtle message. I’d have to be extra-careful whenever I drank, or said something when I went out with my friends. I was expected to represent with dignity those who had gone before me, who had given their lives and who had been terribly wounded.

  The next afternoon, I returned to the White House for the ceremony. When the president hung that medal around my neck, I felt glum. I couldn’t smile and I said nothing. I gave no remarks and avoided the press. As a Marine, you either bring your team home alive or you die trying. My country was recognizing me for being a failure and for the worst day of my life.

  In attendance were other Medal of Honor recipients, generals and politicians, friends and relatives, and my comrades-in-arms. Rodriguez-Chavez and his wife were there with his beaming daughters, as were Swenson, Kerr, Bokis, Devine, Jeffords, Skinta—and on and on.

  The president hosted us in the East Wing, where kings, prime ministers, ambassadors, and Hollywood stars were normally welcomed. The setting spoke to the history and traditions of America. In the Blue Room hung George P. A. Healy’s finest presidential portrait. In the East Room, Gilbert Stuart’s painting of George Washington hung above the fireplace. Ben Franklin was on the far wall of the Green Room. The White House seemed almost a living thing, full of power, dignity, and tradition.

  Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, awarded the Medal of Honor a few months earlier, showed us how he could rotate his prosthetic right hand. He had lost his hand in Afghanistan throwing back an enemy grenade.

  “Why didn’t you pitch the grenade away with your left hand?” someone asked him.

  “I can’t throw lefty,” Petry said. “I’d have blown up my buddies and me!”

  We all laughed. Here we were—Army and Marine grunts in uniforms with ribbons from a dozen campaigns—drinking beer in rooms accustomed to diplomats and senators. Where else in the world would the head of state welcome into the halls of power, pomp, and history simple warriors who had no political connections or financial riches?

  The Marine Commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, and Gen. Joseph Dunford attended the ceremony. Throughout the years after Ganjigal, the Marine Corps leadership had provided consistent support not just to me, but to all who had fought there. The top enlisted man in the Marine Corps, Sgt. Maj. Mike Barrett, twice came to our farm to meet my dad and granddad and to encourage me.

  There is no such person as a former Marine. Fifty years after they have left active duty, Marines still sign emails to each other with S/F—Semper Fidelis. Always Faithful. Of course we have among us those who fail themselves, their families, and society. The fact remains, though, that the Corps expects every Marine to live by a set of core values. In turn, the Corps keeps its side of the bargain. You cannot ask anything more of an organization than that.

  The Medal of Honor, given in the name of the Congress of the United States of America, symbolizes the courage and determination of our entire country. I think if the president hadn’t said what he said, I wouldn’t have been able to stand it. But I met great people, and still do.

  I was in New York City, at the Twin Towers site, Ground Zero, with Gunny Joshua Peterson, someone I knew from my first days in the Corps. We were greeted by hundreds of police, firemen, construction workers, Wall Street guys in suits, city officials, and the families of the fallen.

  “Meyer, I can’t believe this scene,” Gunny Peterson said. “Make sure your ribbons are squared away.”

  We stood side by side, two grunts in sharply ironed khakis, waving like we had won an election. I thought of my sad, fumbling meetings with the families of Team Monti when I couldn’t think of much to say; I was alive and their loved ones were not. Now here I was standing before a monument for three thousand dead.

  I saw some big ironworkers in hard hats standing off to one side. When the ceremony ended, they sneaked me onto a work elevator. Up we went to the top of the ride, where we then climbed wooden ladders until we couldn’t go any farther and there weren’t any guardrails. I stood there looking out at the most beautiful country in the world, trying to make sense of my feelings. This was where it had started, so many good people lost, the people who had been working here, and the people I had known who had not gone blindly into uniform, they had reasoned why—Americans do that—but they had gone ahead to do and to die.

  An ironworker handed me a silver marker. I wrote on a girder:

  For those who gave all.

  Postscript: Swenson

  I cannot finish my account without making a special appeal. I’m a Marine sergeant, but I hope the higher-ups in the U.S. Army will listen. On the battlefield, we’re all brothers. Rank and service make no difference, and the basic truth is that Capt. Swenson was not treated fairly.

  Will Swenson wasn’t excitable or impulsive. He wasn’t a hard-core jock like Lt. Kerr, primed to take on all comers. Will was your classic laid-back college graduate from the outdoors state of Washington. He sailed, skied, climbed mountains, and traveled the globe. He gave others their space while he went about his job without fuss or drama. Swenson was this quiet, dangerous dude who never said much while calling in fire missions to blow away jihadists. He was the George Clooney type—cool, detached, and lethal when you least expected it.

  Swenson had been infuriated by the lack of fire support at Ganjigal. He had signed statements blasting the rules of engagement and the attitudes of higher headquarters.

  “I get these crazy messages saying that, ‘hey!, brigade is saying you can’t see the target from your OT [observer-target line],’ ” he wrote. “Brigade, you’re in Jalalabad. Fuck you. I am staring at the target …”

  “Fuck you,” to his high command. For Swenson to blow up like that in a sworn statement, you knew the frustration came from deep in his heart. He felt he had crossed the line with those high above him.

  “I’m still sleeping in my [sleeping] bag,” Swenson said a few weeks after he testified. “I expect to be kicked out.”

  Hundreds of soldiers and officers at all levels knew that Swenson had been nominated for the Medal of Honor. Gen. Dunford met with Swenson at Joyce in mid-November to thank him for his courage. Dunford’s schedule had been coordinated at all the senior commands. Yet no Army general flew to Joyce to meet with Swenson.

  Lt. Col. Mark O’Donnell signed the recommendation for the Medal of Honor in December of 2009. The form, together with thirty-five supporting appendices, was sent to the 4th Infantry Brigade, the next higher headquarters. The brigade commander signed the form, added a handwritten endorsement, and in January sent it to the Combined Joint Task Force, or CJTF-82, commanded by Maj. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti.

  JTF-82 was an infantry command, where performance in battle is everything. A nomination for the Medal of Honor was a huge happening. If you join the Army or Marine Corps, you obey its rules and trust the institution to apply the same rules to everyone—corporals, captains, and generals. Strict regulations prescribed the chain of custody and signatures required for the Medal of Honor.

  Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, who commanded RC-East in 2008, nominated three soldiers for the Medal of Honor. “The process of nominating,” he said, “is truly one of the most important things a commander does in combat.”

  In 2009, Maj. Gen. Scaparrotti took command of RC-East, and unfortunately Swenson’s nomination was eventually lost. This occ
urred during a period of intense scrutiny into CJTF-82. In addition to the investigation into the events at Ganjigal, three other investigations were under way regarding CJTF-82’s combat procedures. In May of 2009, the insurgents had overrun an outpost north of Joyce called Bari Alai. Three American and two Latvian soldiers had died, leading to an investigation by the television correspondent Dan Rather. In July, Battalion 1-32 was sent north to fight in a fishbowl called Barge Matal, leading to questions about operational decision-making. Then followed the ambush at Ganjigal, with an initial investigation that infuriated the Marine Corps. In October, an outpost named Keating was overrun, with a loss of eight U.S. soldiers. Another investigation was opened. Then in November, a second investigation into Ganjigal revealed serious command errors.

  Swenson symbolized Ganjigal, and Ganjigal conveyed the wrong message: failure to support advisors, failure to provide artillery support, failure to deliver timely air support, et cetera.

  In the midst of all those investigations, Gen. Scaparrotti’s headquarters lost the one-inch-thick packet recommending the Medal of Honor. The processing guidelines were crystal-clear, with no ambiguity. Plus, at the end of each calendar year, the orders log and a specific form had to be uploaded into the Army electronic archives. CJTF-82 did not follow those steps. Swenson’s nomination for the award held most sacred in the military disappeared without a trace. The packet had vanished into thin air, forgotten by everybody in the chain of command.

  When Swenson returned to the States in the winter of 2010, he was assigned to Fort Lewis in Washington, where the overall commander was Scaparrotti, who had been promoted to lieutenant general. Several briefings for Scaparrotti included the name of Will Swenson as the author. But the general never called Swenson in for a chat.

  Swenson had been wrong to fear that the Army would fire him. Instead, he served out the remainder of his term and resigned quietly. The Marine Corps awarded each of my four fallen comrades a posthumous Bronze Star with combat V. Army Sgt. 1st Class Westbrook received no such combat V, and Swenson’s career as a grunt was over.

  In August of 2010, Col. Daniel Yoo, my senior advisor commander, on two occasions informed the Marine Central Command about the recommendation for Swenson. Yoo wrote that he was noting this “for the record.” This was a subtle way of suggesting that Central Command ask what had happened to the missing award packet.

  In April of 2011, Gen. George Casey, the chief of staff of the Army, was notified by an unofficial back channel that “Swenson received no award. This has caused disquiet among those who were at Ganjigal.” Casey alerted the senior Army staff to begin a search for Swenson’s lost file. A senior Army staffer in Afghanistan conducted an informal investigation, found the lost recommendation, and resubmitted it in August.

  The overall commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, took up the chase in August, requesting Swenson’s file be brought to him. Lt. Gen. Scaparrotti was back in Afghanistan as the Corps commander. His staff sent Allen a duplicate packet of the original recommendation. Allen immediately endorsed the recommendation and graciously wrote a letter of apology for the delay to Swenson. Asked why he did this when he had not been in command two years earlier and had no responsibility for the oversight, Allen replied, “Because it was the right thing to do.”

  Allen sent the file to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commanded the Central Command. Mattis was a tough grunt famous for once quipping, “Be the hunter, not the hunted.” He compared the statements in my packet with those attesting to Swenson. Most were identical or highly similar. He handwrote a strong endorsement, stating that he had no doubt that Swenson deserved the Medal of Honor. He sent his endorsement to the Army chain of command in the States.

  Finally, after a lapse of two years, the Army as an institution seemed poised to do the honorable thing. I waited a few months for word that Swenson would be recognized. But no one in the Army called Will.

  So in November of 2011, I decided to send my objections directly to the White House. It was unjust that I had stood at attention before our commander-in-chief without Capt. Swenson at my side. Below is a condensed version of the email that I sent to Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, U.S. Army, the senior officer on the National Security Council staff. Lute had the reputation of being a straight shooter.

  Dear General Lute,

  I would like my testimony about the valor of Capt. Will Swenson to be received by the proper authorities. At Ganjigal, it was Swenson that I heard repeatedly calling for fires. It was clear he was running the show and was the centerpiece for command and control in a raging firefight that never died down.

  Our group consisted of Swenson, Fabayo, Rodriguez-Chavez, me, and a brave Afghan interpreter named Hafez. From 0745 on, we were together. Swenson tried to get that platoon to help us. When I couldn’t get the body [of Dodd Ali] into the truck, Swenson hopped out and completed the task. We made several trips in looking for my advisor team, bringing out some wounded and dead each time.

  Swenson controlled all the helos. He picked out the targets and kept situational awareness, radioing cardinal directions and distances. Not everyone can do that when bullets are continuously hitting the sides of your truck.

  Swenson was not the senior commander; he just took over and everyone deferred to him. To the extent that anyone was in charge on that chaotic battlefield over the course of six or seven hours, it was Captain Will Swenson.

  Bottom line: I would not be alive today if it were not for Will Swenson!

  Sincerely, Dakota L. Meyer

  General Lute was very courteous. He assured me he had looked into the matter and sent my email to the proper authorities in the Army. When no one contacted me for my testimony, I chose to believe that the Army had thoroughly investigated Capt. Swenson’s conduct during the battle and had no need of further testimony. Throughout the summer of 2012, the Army continued with its internal reviews.

  I am sure the Army will eventually reach the right conclusion. Capt. William Swenson fully deserves the Medal of Honor for his gallant leadership and valor. Only when that happens will fairness and accountability have prevailed after Ganjigal.

  Epilogue

  BING WEST

  Dakota looked like he was going to a funeral when I met him in a hotel lobby near the White House two years after Ganjigal. His family, friends, and battle buddies were chatting in amiable groups, occasionally waving in our direction. He nodded somberly, responding civilly to a situation he wanted to avoid. He looked around, bemused.

  “Can you believe this is happening?” he said.

  I had met Cpl. Meyer at Combat Outpost Monti a few weeks after the Ganjigal battle. I was embedded for a second time with Battalion 1-32, and Lt. Jake Kerr insisted that I meet the “pit bull.” I included a chapter about Ganjigal in a book called The Wrong War, then turned to other writing assignments.

  A year later, Dakota asked if I would write a book with him. I demurred, explaining that an agent could provide him with many qualified writers. That wasn’t the point, Dakota said; he wanted a grunt to deliver his message.

  “I can write about battle,” I said. “But I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re too old to remember what that is.”

  * * *

  Hmm. I had written my first book, Small Unit Action in Vietnam, in 1966. While that had been several decades before Dakota was born, it wasn’t exactly as long ago as World War I. Since then, I’ve been in battles in jungles, villages, deserts, and mountains and written seven books about combat that shared one trait: chaos. Every retelling of battle is a description of confusion.

  Ask a dozen players to reconstruct a football game and you will get a dozen differing accounts. Imagine, then, the confusing recollections after a battle. The Ganjigal battle, given its ferocity and the antagonisms toward the staffs in the rear, had a number of contradictions in the footnotes citing the sworn statements of the participants.

  There is agreement, however, about the ove
rall narrative. I was not present at the battle, although I had embedded several times in the Ganjigal region and knew many of the soldiers and advisors. This book is based upon hundreds of hours of discussions with Dakota. I’ve also talked with other participants and have pored over dozens of witness statements and investigations. The quotes are illustrative and not the actual words used in the fight. These are his words and expressions. This is Dakota’s account from start to finish.

  In its ferocity, valor, treachery, and bungling, Ganjigal was extraordinary. The battle resulted in thirteen friendly fatalities, two investigations, two reprimands for dereliction of duty, one Medal of Honor and the “loss” of the recommendation for a second Medal of Honor. A writer imposes coherence upon chaos by selecting a point of view and developing themes that tie the narrative together. The focus of this book is the character growth of Dakota Meyer. His story stands as a metaphor for the war. It illustrates three themes: a frustrating war, a misplaced strategy, and the grit of the American warrior. Let’s look at each of the three.

  First, the frustrating war has no end point. by giving the Taliban a sanctuary, the Pakistani generals have ensured that the war will not go on indefinitely. Our soldiers are fighting only so that Afghan soldiers can take over the fight. In Vietnam, I patrolled in a dozen villages like Ganjugal, where the farmers were inscrutable and enemy without uniforms sprang ambushes. Afghanistan is a similarly elusive and maddening war, where the host government is unreliable and tribal loyalties are suspect.

  That medieval culture defied reshaping by our policymakers. President Obama called Afghanistan “the good war” and doubled the number of troops, followed by ordering a withdrawal. Our troops have taken the war to the enemy and placed the Islamic terrorists on the defensive. That’s about as much as can be done. Wars fought for fuzzy objectives are not guaranteed to succeed.

  Such irregular wars will repeat regularly. Because we are a nation that pursues success, we are frustrated by such ambiguity. We don’t want to divide our country, as in the Vietnam era, when there was an unpopular draft. That is why we have an all-volunteer force. We need warriors like Dakota who fight willingly when our elected commander-in chief gives the order.