Navy SEAL Receives Medal Of Honor For Afghanistan Actions In 2002

Jim Garamone at the DoD News offers the below information:

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2018 — Sitting in the White House reading the citation for the Medal of Honor doesn’t give the real flavor of why retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer and special warfare operator Britt K. Slabinski (seen in the above and below photos) is receiving the award.

The nicely air conditioned room with comfortable chairs, impeccable floors, historic artwork and gilt on many surfaces isn’t right, somehow.

The dispassionate words on the award talk of Slabinski’s heroism in assaulting bunkers, rallying his men, and going back into the center of the firefight.

The White House is literally half a world away from a mountain in Afghanistan in 2002, where Slabinski -- and America -- lost seven good men.

When the master chief talks of the action, you realize he is reliving his time atop Takur Ghar -- a 10,000-foot mountain near Ghazni, on March 4, 2002. He is remembering his decisions. He is remembering what he felt. And he is remembering his brothers who were killed.

He speaks in present tense, because in his mind’s eye. It is still happening.

‘I Was Just Doing My Job’

He believes he did nothing special. “I was just doing my job that day,” Slabinski said during an interview.

Slabinski -- then a senior chief petty officer -- and his men were just supposed to set up an overwatch position on the mountain to support the conventional forces in the valley below. “Now the enemy gets a vote,” he said. “We plan, we train, we rehearse and we rehearse some more for every possible contingency, but sometimes the fog and friction of war is just out of your control and a leader has to adapt.”

The team was aboard an Army MH-47 helicopter and as it was landing, well dug-in al-Qaida fighters opened up. “When we land, the ramp goes down,” he said. “I’m standing on the very back of the helicopter … and almost immediately take an RPG rocket to the side of the aircraft. It goes off, fills the aircraft full of smoke and we are getting shot up right away. There’s bullets flying through the aircraft the size of your finger [from] 12.7 machine guns that were up there.”

The pilot was able to take off, but the bird was wounded and experienced what Slabinski called “the worst turbulence you could imagine.”

Those gyrations caused Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts to fall off the ramp. The crew chief grabbed Roberts’ pack, and the weight of the SEAL pulled him off the ramp, too. But the crew chief was tethered into the aircraft and was able to get back in. Roberts fell 10 feet into the meter-deep snow.

“It happens that fast,” Slabinski said as he snapped his fingers.

He told the pilot that he had lost a man, but with the chopper’s hydraulics shot out, there was no way the bird could circle and retrieve him. “[The pilot] was flying a brick,” Slabinski said. “It was basically a controlled crash into the enemy-held valley.”

The master chief assessed the situation. “Now my mission originally was to support the overwatch, then my teammate Neil fell out, and now I have a downed helicopter I have to deal with,” he said.

Calling For Support

The first problem he dealt with was the helicopter, and he called in a second aircraft to take the crew and team to a safe place. Once there, Slabinski was able to focus his attention on Neil.

The information he received was Roberts was alive. “I knew there was a superior enemy force up there and they had heavier weapons than I had,” he said.

The enemy, the cold, the altitude -- “Everything that could be stacked against us, was stacked against us going back, and I had the feeling that this was a one-way trip,” he said. “I knew though, that if I go now, there’s a chance I could rescue Neil. I knew if I tried to develop a battle plan more on my terms, it would certainly be better, but I knew Neil didn’t have that time.”

The weight was on Slabinski’s shoulders. “I remember sitting in the helicopter,” he said. “The [rotors are] turning, it’s cold, trying to sort through the tactical piece of it … and this thought keeps coming back to me: If I go now what’s the cost going to be versus the cost if I wait. If you are the leader and you have peoples’ lives that you are responsible for, the decisions don’t come easy.”

This was Slabinski’s loneliest moment. He was sitting in the chopper with a headset on and people are talking to him. He was thinking of all the tactical problems and the lives. “And this thought kept coming back to me, and it’s the first line of the Boy Scout Oath … ‘On my honor, I will do my best,’” said Slabinski, who attained the rank of Eagle Scout at his hometown troop in Northampton, Massachusetts “The only thing that is in the back of my mind is, ‘On my honor I will do my best, On my honor I will do my best, On my honor I will do my best.’

“That’s when I said, ‘I’m gonna go do this.’”

The master chief assigned his men jobs, and the pilot of the first aircraft, Army Chief Warrant Officer Al Mack, went up to Slabinski and told him he would be flying them back in the new MH-47, even though he had just survived a harrowing experience with the first helicopter.

There was no other place to land, so the team had to go right back to the place the first bird took the fire. As the chopper took off, it got quiet for Slabinski and he thought of his son, who was 6 years old at the time. “I remember saying, ‘I love you. Sorry for what’s to come. Be great,’” he said. “Then I put it in another room in my brain and went on with my duties.”

Enemy Fire

This Chinook also took fire coming in to the landing area, and as soon as the ramp went down, the team went off the back of the ramp. Two men went to the right, two to the left and the master chief and Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, an Air Force combat controller, went out together.

Slabinski and Chapman were hit by a burst of automatic weapons fire. “The burst hit John and he went down,” Slabinski said. “The bullets from the same burst went through my clothes on each side, and I jumped behind a rock.”

The belt-fed weapon kept firing at them. “I looked for John and he is lying in a very odd position, and I look to my other guys and they are engaged with another dug-in position and the two to my left are engaged there. There are enemy muzzle flashes on three sides.”

There is no cover, and Slabinski tosses two grenades at the bunker, but the position is too well dug in. He looks to his men and sees Chapman still in the same odd position and the others engaging the enemy. His M60 gunner is next to me. “I have a 40mm grenade launcher … and I have six grenades,” he said. “I’m too close to the big bunker because they won’t go off. They have to spin to arm.”

Firefight Continues

He fired at the farther bunkers and silenced those, but the big bunker remains a deadly problem. He has the M60-gunner fire on the bunker and he wants to charge to the bunker to clear it under the cover of that automatic fire. Before he could do that, a grenade flies out of the bunker and explodes right in front of the barrel of the M60, wounding the gunner.

Slabinski again assesses the situation. “The gunner is down. John hasn’t moved and my other two guys are still engaged in contact,” he said. “The plan in my head isn’t working so I have to do something different.”

He decided to get his small band out of direct fire. As he is doing that another SEAL was hit in the leg from the same machine gun Slabinski was trying to take out. “I sent the wounded over first and I crawled over to John, looking for some sign of life from John and didn’t get anything,” he said.

The place he chose to seek shelter from the fire was just about 30 feet away over the side of the mountain.

Mortar Fire

Slabinski called for support from an AC-130 gunship to hit the bunkers. At the same time as the aircraft was hitting the mountain he noticed shell fragments were landing around the team. Slabinski thinks at first it is the AC-130, but it is from an enemy mortar that is ranging his position.

He moves again to a more protected area and now the U.S. Army Ranger quick reaction force is coming in. The first chopper is hit and crashes on the top of the mountain. Slabinski contacted the second bird and it lands on another spit of land and the Rangers work their way to the SEAL position and attack up the mountain to secure the top.

The master chief can’t move his wounded to the top of the mountain, so he moved to a place he could secure and await medevac, which came that night.

Estimates of the number of al-Qaida fighters on the top of that mountain range between 40 and 100. They had heavy weapons galore with automatic machine guns, mortars, RPGs and recoilless rifles. It was the headquarters for al-Qaida operating against U.S. forces engaged in Operation Anaconda. The SEAL team went in to try to rescue Roberts with six men.

Footage taken by a remotely piloted vehicle and examined later showed that Chapman was not dead. The technical sergeant regained consciousness and engaged the enemy killing two of them -- one in hand-to-hand combat. “I was 100 percent convinced that John was dead,” Slabinski said. “I never lost track of John.”

He never would have left the airman on that mountain, he said, if he thought for an instant that Chapman was alive.

For his actions that day, Slabinski received the Navy Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor. As part of then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s directive to the services to re-examine all of the valor awards beginning in 2001, the Navy recommended upgrading that award to the Medal of Honor. The master chief -- who retired from the Navy in 2014 -- received a call from President Donald J. Trump in March telling him of the decision.

The master chief is conflicted about the award. He believes he was just doing his job and still feels the loss of the seven men -- Navy, Army and Air Force -- he served with that day. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them,” he said. “If I could give up this medal to have them back, I would.” 

My Washington Times Review Of 'By Honor Bound: Two Navy SEALs, The Medal Of Honor, And A Story Of Extraordinary Courage'

My review of By Honor Bound appears in the Washington Times today.

That U.S. Navy SEALs are extraordinary men is a given. They are extraordinarily trained, extraordinarily skilled, and extraordinarily tough and extraordinarily brave.

Yet even among these extraordinary men, certain SEALs have gone above and beyond the special operations teams’ extraordinary attributes and their actions have made them legends in the SEAL community and in military history.

Tom Norris and Mike Thornton are two such men.

During the Vietnam War SEAL Lt. Tom Norris placed his own life in jeopardy when he rescued two American airmen shot down behind North Vietnamese enemy lines. For this action in April of 1972, Lt. Norris received the Medal of Honor.

Six months later, SEAL Petty Officer Mike Thornton waded into heavy enemy fire and rescued Lt. Norris, who had been severely wounded with a bullet wound to his left eye. For this action, Petty Officer Thornton received the Medal of Honor.

In “By Honor Bound: Two Navy SEALs, the Medal of Honor, and a Story of Extraordinary Courage,” Mike Thornton andTom Norris, along with author, Vietnam veteran and former Navy SEAL Dick Couch, tell their incredible story.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/28/book-review-by-honor-bound-two-navy-seals-the-meda/

Navy SEAL Awarded Medal of Honor For Hostage Rescue Heroism

Terri Moon Cronk at DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 29, 2016 — Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Edward C. Byers Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor today, making him the sixth Navy SEAL in the force’s history to receive the U.S. military’s highest honor.

The White House’s East Room was filled with Byers’ family, friends and special operators from around the world who served with him, as well as special operations forces leaders, Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel; commander of U.S. Special Operations Command; Socom’s deputy commander, Navy Vice Adm. Sean A. Pybus; Navy Rear Adm. Tim Szymanski, assistant commander of Joint Special Operations Command; Navy Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, commander of U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command; and the command’s force master chief, Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Derrick Walters.

“That’s the brotherhood -- the depth of loyalty to service and to mission -- that binds these teams,” the president said, noting the special ops community’s presence at the ceremony.

Mission Rescued Civilian American Doctor
Byers, 36, was awarded the prestigious honor for his courageous actions while serving as part of a team that rescued an American civilian doctor who was held hostage in Afghanistan from Dec. 8 to 9, 2012, White House officials said.

Byers, a Toledo, Ohio, native and also a Navy corpsman, became the 11th living service member awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic actions in Afghanistan. He has deployed overseas 11 times, has had nine combat tours, and is two-time recipient of the Purple Heart and a five-time recipient of the Bronze Star with valor, among his many awards.

Hostage in Taliban Hands

The president said the American doctor, who was bringing health care to the Afghan people, was captured and held by Taliban forces in a small, single-room building in a remote valley of a mountainous region.

The doctor lost all hope, Obama said, quoting him as saying, “I was certain, I was about to die.”  His captors told him the Americans were not coming for him. “Well, they were wrong,” Obama said. “Whenever Americans are taken hostage in the world, we move heaven and earth to bring them home safe. We send some thunder and some lightning -- our special operator forces -- folks like Ed Byers.”

When the United States believed a Taliban commander was about to move the hostage to Pakistan, time was of the essence, Obama said. From a remote forward-operating base, Byers and his joint team geared up, boarded their helicopters and launched, he added.

‘Bullets Started Flying’

“Once on the ground, they moved -- under the cover of darkness, on that cold December night -- through the mountains, down rocky trails for hours,” the president said. “They found their target and moved in, quickly and quietly. When they were less than 100 feet from the building, a guard came out and bullets started flying.

“Our SEALs rushed to the doorway, which was covered by a layer of blankets,” Obama continued. “Ed started ripping them down, exposing himself to enemy fire. A teammate, the lead assaulter, pushed in and was hit. Fully aware of the danger, Ed moved in next. An enemy guard aimed his rifle right at him. Ed fired. Someone moved across the floor -- perhaps the hostage, [or] perhaps another guard lunging for a weapon.”

The ensuing struggle was hand-to-hand, and Byers straddled the man, pinning him down, Obama said. Byers adjusted his night-vision goggles, and after gaining better focus, he realized he was on top of a guard.

Obama said the American hostage later described the scene as a dark room suddenly filled with men and the sound of exploding gunfire. Narrow beams of light shot in every direction, and voices called out his name. He answered, “I’m right here.”

Byers Covered Hostage

“Ed leapt across the room and threw himself on the hostage, using his own body to shield him from the bullets,” Obama said. “Another enemy fighter appeared, and with his body, Ed kept shielding the hostage. With his bare hands, Ed pinned the fighter to the wall and held him until his teammates took action. It was over almost as soon as it began.”

In just minutes, by going after the guards, Byers saved the lives of his teammates and the hostage, Obama said. “You’re safe,” Obama said the SEALs told the doctor. “You are with American forces.”

But the success came with a price, the president said. The first SEAL through the door, Byers’ friend Navy Chief Petty Officer Nicolas Checque, was badly wounded and later died. On the helicopter out, Byers stayed with him, performing CPR during the 40-minute flight, the president said. “Today, we salute Chief Petty Officer Nicolas Checque,” Obama said, noting that Checque was one of 70 Naval Special Warfare members -- 55 of them SEALs -- who have made the ultimate sacrifice since 9/11.

“Small in number, they have borne an extraordinarily heavy load,” the president said. But they continue to volunteer, mission after mission, year after year. I see the difference you make every day -- the partners you train, the relationships you forge, the other hostages that you’ve brought home, the terrorists that you take out. I’ve waited, like many of you, in those minutes that seem like hours when the margin between success and failure is razor-thin, for word that the team is out safe. I’ve grieved with you and I’ve stood with you at Dover [Air Force Base in Delaware] to welcome our fallen heroes on their final journey home.”

The U.S. special operations forces are a strategic national asset, teaching the nation that humans are more important than hardware. “Today is a reminder that our nation has to keep investing in this irreplaceable asset, which means deploying our special operators wisely, preserving force and family, making sure these incredible Americans stay strong in body, in mind and in spirit,” Obama said.

Byers Citation: ‘Bold, Decisive Action’

A military aide read Byer’s citation and noted his “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.”

“His bold and decisive actions under fire saved the lives of the hostage and several of his teammates,” the citation says. “By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of near-certain death, Senior Chief Petty Officer Byers reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.” 

Former U.S. Army Captain William D. Swensen Inducted Into Pentagon Hall Of Heroes

Claudette Roulo at the American Forces Press Service offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2013 - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno inducted former Army Capt. William D. Swenson into the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes today during a ceremony at the Pentagon.

President Barack Obama presented Swenson with the Medal of Honor at the White House yesterday. He was nominated for his actions while serving as an embedded trainer for the 1st Zone Afghan National Border Police. Swenson is the first Army officer to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War and the sixth living recipient from the war in Afghanistan.

Hagel said he could not improve on what has been said about Swenson over the past few days, but "one particular point that President Obama made yesterday was that at a time in our country when we need more unifying dimensions and dynamics to remind us who we are ... the Will Swenson story does that."

While taking part in an operation that included U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, Afghan National Army and Afghan National Border Police elements, Swenson repeatedly risked his life to rescue his comrades -- Afghan and American -- during an enemy ambush in the Ganjgal valley.

This is a time of mixed emotions, McHugh said. "A time when we pay tribute to uncommon valor, but at the same time we mourn and remember the horrible loss of comrades and friends."

As dawn broke on Sept. 8, 2009, the combined element departed their vehicles and made their way up the valley on foot toward Ganjgal village, the site of a planned leader engagement mission. The column consisted of 106 personnel: 60 Afghan soldiers; 14 U.S. Marine Corps embedded training team mentors; 30 Afghan border police officers; and Swenson and Army Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Westbrook, both advisors to the border police. The dismounted patrol was made necessary by the terrain and by reports of improvised explosive devices along the road.

Perched high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province, Ganjgal village lies near the head of a U-shaped valley lined with loose rocks and boulders washed down from the steep, terraced slopes. A narrow, ungraded road -- not wide enough for heavy military vehicles -- snakes through the valley, which ends at the border with Pakistan.

The operation that morning, dubbed Buri Booza II, was being conducted at the behest of village leaders, who had visited the local forward operating base, FOB Joyce, a few days earlier and invited the Afghan and coalition forces there to come assess repairs needed on the Ganjgal mosque.

Intelligence reports indicated that the operation was unlikely to encounter a large or heavily-armed force. However, patrols entering Ganjgal valley were regularly engaged by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, usually from small groups taking advantage of the high ground, and the combined force was prepared for that prospect.

Instead, they walked into a three-sided ambush by at least 60 enemy armed with RPGs, mortars, PKM machine guns and AK-47s.

As sunlight crept its way into the valley, the patrol broke into three elements. Swenson, Westbrook and their Afghan Border Patrol counterparts walked up the center of the wash at the bottom of the valley with two small elements from the embedded training team leading the way, while the remaining Marines and their Afghan army counterparts took up support positions to the north and south of the column.

Hidden in trenches and buildings and positioned on the slopes above the village, the Taliban fighters opened fire as the Marines and Afghan soldiers at the head of the column crested a rise in the wash about 100 meters from the village. The steep terrain made it difficult for the patrol elements to maintain visual and audio contact as they sought cover, but Swenson was able to call for artillery to disrupt the enemy's attack.

Despite the incoming artillery fire, the insurgents were able to gain the initiative due to a combination of the complicated terrain and proximity to the village. After about an hour of fighting, they had drawn to within 50 meters of Swenson's men. Unable to re-establish contact with the patrol's lead elements, with wounded troops accumulating, Swenson coordinated for combat aviation and helicopter support to evacuate the wounded.

Learning that Westbrook had been shot, Swenson and Marine Corps 1st Lt. Ademola D. Fabayo and 1st Sgt. Christopher Garza -- also seriously wounded -- exposed themselves to enemy fire by maneuvering through open areas to Westbrook's position and began administering first aid.

After more than an hour and a half of fighting, two OH-58D Kiowa Scout helicopters arrived and began engaging the enemy under the direction of Swenson. The helicopters provided the distraction Swenson, Fabayo, Garza and Jonathan Landay, a reporter embedded with the Marines, needed to carry Westbrook to an evacuation point. Westbrook later died of his injuries.

Swenson and Fabayo returned to the battlefield twice again in an unarmored Afghan border police vehicle to evacuate the wounded. Unable to establish contact with the lead element of three Marines, a Navy corpsman and their Afghan army counterparts, Swenson worked with the air support pilot in an effort to locate the missing men. An the same time, Marine Staff Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez and Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer were engaging in a similar effort to recover wounded troops.

After two trips up the valley, Swenson and Fabayo's vehicle became too damaged to return to the kill zone a third time, but enemy fire was making it impossible for a combat search and rescue helicopter to land. So, Swenson returned to where the patrol had left their vehicles and brought back four armored vehicles, stopping to pick up Meyer on the way back to the battlefield.

The convoy succeeded in extracting several more wounded Afghan troops, but was unable to find the missing lead element -- even after a dismounted search. After several hours of searching, the fallen men were finally located from the air, and their position was marked with smoke.

With the help of air support, Swenson, Fabayo, Rodriguez-Chavez, Meyer and several Afghan soldiers once again battled their way through enemy fire toward the now-marked position. They found their comrades at the bottom of a deep trench that had been impossible to see during their earlier ground searches. The rescue team recovered the bodies of their fallen comrades and returned to the evacuation point. Swenson went immediately afterward to verify with the Afghan forces that there were no remaining missing personnel.

Five Americans and nine Afghans died as a result of the fighting. Rodriguez-Chavez and Fabayo received the Navy Cross for their actions. Meyer also received the Medal of Honor in 2011 for his role in the rescue effort. In addition, a Silver Star and nine Bronze Stars with "V" devices were awarded out of the battle.

Swenson proved his heroism over and over again through his actions that day, Hagel said. And Swenson continued to prove it even after the battle, when "he dared to question the institution that he was faithful to and loyal to. Mistakes were made in his case. Now, that's courage, and that's integrity and that's character."

Swenson's biggest contribution to the nation will most likely come later, as he serves as a role model for generations to come, the defense secretary said.

"That is our biggest, most significant responsibility -- to improve upon the inheritance that we were each given. ... make it better, inspire, uplift our people, our families, our countries and the world," the secretary said.

Note: You can read a profile of Captain Swenson via the below link:

http://www.army.mil/medalofhonor/swenson/profile.html