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Ganjgal, 2009

On 8 September 2009, Afghan soldiers and border police with their U.S. Marine, Navy and Army trainers walked up a valley in Kunar province to meet the elders of Ganjgal and were ambushed from three sides at the edge of the village. Calls for artillery were refused and helicopters took more than an hour to arrive; a lead team of three Marines and a Navy corpsman was cut off and killed, and an Army adviser was mortally wounded. Cpl. Dakota Meyer, USMC, and Capt. William Swenson, U.S. Army, repeatedly went back into the kill zone to bring out the wounded and finally the dead, and both received the Medal of Honor; 1st Lt. Ademola Fabayo and SSgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez received the Navy Cross. Five Americans, eight or nine Afghan soldiers and police, and an interpreter died. An Army investigation found 'negligent' leadership in the supporting battalion's operations center, and two officers were reprimanded.

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Battlescape: the Ganjgal valley
Battlescape: the Ganjgal valley — U.S. Army — public domain

The battle, stage by stage

  1. 8 September 2009, before dawn

    Up the wash

    Under a full moon, a combined column — about 60 soldiers of the Afghan National Army's 1st Kandak, 2nd Brigade, 201st Corps, some 20–30 Afghan Border Police, and 13 U.S. Marine, Army and Navy trainers of Embedded Training Team 2-8, with McClatchy reporter Jonathan Landay — drives from the base in Shakani district toward Ganjgal, a hamlet of rock-walled compounds terraced up the eastern end of a valley a few miles from the Pakistan border. The mission is a meeting with the village elders about rebuilding the mosque. The lights in Ganjgal go out as the convoy approaches. At the bottom of the valley the column leaves its vehicles at the rally point, where Cpl. Dakota Meyer and SSgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez stay with the gun trucks, and walks about a mile up a boulder-strewn wash while small teams climb to overwatch positions on the north and south ridges.

  2. About 5:30 AM

    Ambush from three sides

    As the lead team — 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, Gunnery Sgt. Edwin Johnson, Staff Sgt. Aaron Kenefick and Navy corpsman HM3 James Layton with their Afghan platoon — reaches the first houses, fire erupts from the village, from the ridge to the east and from the hills on both flanks: machine guns, RPGs and rifles in a U-shaped ambush. Estimates of the insurgents run from about 60 (Army) to well over 100 (later reporting). Behind them the command group under Maj. Kevin Williams, with 1st Lt. Ademola Fabayo, 1st Sgt. Christopher Garza and Landay, takes cover behind a terrace wall in the wash; Capt. William Swenson and SFC Kenneth Westbrook are just behind with the border police.

  3. About 5:50–6:55 AM

    Calls for fire

    Swenson and the others radio the battalion operations center for artillery and helicopters. A few salvos are fired early, but later requests are refused — the investigation found the operations center did not track the fight and that officers overruled the fire-support NCO and Air Force controller who tried to help; helicopters were committed elsewhere. Insurgents work round both flanks along trenches. About 6:30 radio contact with the lead team is lost; Williams is shot in the arm and Garza deafened by an RPG. Westbrook is hit in the open, and Swenson, Fabayo, Garza and an Afghan soldier cross some 50 metres of open ground to reach him; two Afghan soldiers near them are killed. When insurgents close to within a few dozen metres and call on them to surrender, Swenson answers with a grenade. White-phosphorus smoke for a withdrawal arrives about 50 minutes after it was requested.

  4. About 7:10–7:30 AM

    The Kiowas arrive

    Roughly an hour and a half after the first call, two OH-58D Kiowa scout helicopters arrive and Swenson, still treating Westbrook, directs their rockets and guns onto the hillsides. The fire slackens enough for the column to fall back across about 200 metres of open ground to Support-by-Fire position A, with Swenson and Fabayo carrying Westbrook. A California and Nevada National Guard medevac Black Hawk (Company C, 1-168th General Support Aviation Battalion) is driven off on its first pass; on the second Swenson marks the landing zone with an orange panel and helps load Westbrook, who is flown to the surgical team at Asadabad. The crew comes back three more times for wounded.

  5. Morning

    Back into the kill zone

    Meyer, who had asked repeatedly to go forward, takes the exposed gunner's seat of a gun truck with Rodriguez-Chavez driving. By the Medal of Honor citation, they make two runs up the wash under fire and bring out about two dozen Afghan soldiers, many wounded; when a machine gun fails they switch trucks and go again, covering men fighting their way down from the terraces. Swenson and Fabayo twice drive an unarmoured border police Ranger into the kill zone for wounded. Accounts differ on the number and order of the runs.

  6. About 8 AM to midday

    Searching for the team

    By 8 AM there is still no word from the four Americans. Swenson assembles a convoy at the rally point — an up-armoured Humvee, a border police truck and two Afghan Army vehicles — picking up Meyer, now wounded in the arm, at the casualty collection point. The convoy pushes up the wash, collecting wounded and Afghan dead, but heavy fire forces it past the marked positions and it returns to download casualties. Around noon a search-and-rescue helicopter finally spots the missing men near the first houses; RPG fire drives it off when it tries to land.

  7. Midday to about 2 PM

    Bringing them home

    Under smoke and the Kiowas' covering fire, with Fabayo on the Humvee's machine gun and Rodriguez-Chavez providing cover, Swenson and Meyer go forward with Afghan soldiers to a trench at the base of the first stone house. There they find 1st Lt. Michael Johnson, GySgt. Edwin Johnson, SSgt. Aaron Kenefick (promoted gunnery sergeant posthumously) and HM3 James Layton, killed with an Afghan soldier, their weapons and gear taken. They carry them out to an Afghan Army Humvee, and the force returns to the rally point, where Swenson checks that every Afghan is accounted for. The fight has lasted from dawn until about 2 PM. Westbrook dies of complications on 7 October at Walter Reed.

Weapons

Insurgents (Taliban)

AK-47 / Type 56

AK-47 / Type 56

Assault rifle · 1949–present

At Ganjgal: Insurgents fired from the village, the terraces and both ridgelines, closing to within metres of the trapped trainers.

Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47 became the world's most widespread military rifle thanks to its simplicity and reliability in mud, heat and rain. North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops carried both Soviet AKs and the Chinese-made copy, the Type 56.

Calibre
7.62×39mm
Rate of fire
about 600 rounds/min
Magazine
30-round box
Effective range
about 350 m
Photo: U.S. Department of Defense · Public domain
RPG-7

RPG-7

Shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenade launcher · 1961–present

At Ganjgal: RPGs struck the vehicles that drove back into the kill zone and drove off a search helicopter.

The most widespread anti-armour weapon in the world: cheap, simple and effective against light vehicles and buildings. Iraqi soldiers, Fedayeen and later insurgents and militias fired it in volleys from rooftops and alleys in every battle here.

Calibre
40 mm tube, 85 mm warhead (PG-7V)
Effective range
about 200–300 m
Crew
1–2
Photo: U.S. military photo · public domain

U.S. trainers, Afghan National Army and Border Police

M4 / M4A1 carbine

M4 / M4A1 carbine

5.56 mm assault carbine · 1994–present

At Ganjgal: Dakota Meyer manned the gun-truck turret as it went back in, then went on foot to recover the fallen.

A shortened, lighter M16 that became the standard weapon of U.S. Army infantry and special operations forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; Marine infantry in 2003–04 still mostly carried the full-length M16A4.

Calibre
5.56×45 mm NATO
Barrel
14.5 in
Magazine
30 rounds
Photo: U.S. Marine Corps photo · public domain

Paintings and photographs

Battlescape: the Ganjgal valley
Battlescape: the Ganjgal valley The Army's battlescape of the Ganjgal valley, published with Capt. William Swenson's Medal of Honor. U.S. Army — public domain · source
Cpl. Dakota Meyer at Ganjgal
Cpl. Dakota Meyer at Ganjgal Dakota Meyer while deployed at Ganjgal village, Kunar province. DVIDS — CC BY 2.0 · source
Sgt. Dakota Meyer
Sgt. Dakota Meyer Dakota Meyer, the first living Marine awarded the Medal of Honor since Vietnam. U.S. Marine Corps — public domain · source
Capt. William Swenson
Capt. William Swenson President Obama awards the Medal of Honor to William Swenson, October 2013. Sgt. Mikki L. Sprenkle, U.S. Army — public domain · source

★ Medal of Honor 2 recipients

Links go to the official records: the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and, where they exist, the service's own pages.

Free for everyone every year on its anniversary: September 8.

Accuracy score: 66/100 (moderate)

How the accuracy score works

Sources and method

Ganjgal, 8 September 2009. Only the village itself is a published coordinate (34.790 N, 71.158 E, from the Wikipedia article's infobox); the rally point, wash, overwatch ridges, support-by-fire position and trench are placed relative to it from the descriptions below and are schematic. Accounts differ on the enemy's strength (about 60 to over 100), the number and order of Meyer's runs, and the Afghan dead (eight or nine plus an interpreter); a 2012 McClatchy investigation questioned parts of the official account of Meyer's award, which he disputes.

Where the positions come from

Further reading