William D. Swenson (born 1979) is a former captain in the United States Army who was awarded the Medal of Honor on 15 October 2013. He was the first living United States Army officer to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War, as well as the sixth living recipient in the War on Terror. Swenson graduated from Seattle University with a Bachelor of Science degree in political science. He commissioned from Officer Candidate School as a United States Army infantry officer in September 2002. His military education includes Ranger School and Airborne School, and has deployed three times in the War on Terror, once to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan.[3] He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal (with two oak leaf clusters), the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.[4] At the time of the Battle of Ganjgal, Swenson was a Captain in 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, detailed as an Embedded Trainer for the Afghan Border Police.[5] He left the Army in February 2011 and currently lives in Seattle, Washington. 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.[7] Within an hour, communication to the front of the column, including four U.S. servicemen, was lost.[7] 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.[7] 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.[7] 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.[7] 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.[7] 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.[7] The 6-7 hour firefight caused 15 coalition deaths, including the four U.S. servicemen and Swenson's sergeant, with Swenson's actions believed to have directly contributed to saving more than a dozen Afghan lives.

• published: 20 Dec 2014
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