Hunter: Pentagon IG reopens Swenton MOH Nomination
The Army Times reports that California Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter, Jr. has acknowledged that the Pentagon’s IG has reopened the nomination of Army Captain Will Swenson for the Medal of Honor.
It’s the latest twist in a case that began on Sept. 8, 2009, when the Army captain and other U.S. forces were ambushed in Kunar province, Afghanistan, while serving as advisers to Afghan forces there. The six-hour battle in the village of Ganjgal killed five U.S. troops, and launched a national outcry about why they were repeatedly denied air and artillery support by Army officers on a nearby base.
Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s top combat valor award, in September 2011 for repeatedly braving enemy fire in the battle to recover four of the casualties, who had gone missing on the battlefield. Two other Marines received the Navy Cross — second only to the Medal of Honor — in 2011, and a fallen soldier received the Silver Star posthumously in April for heroism that day.
If you read Meyer’s book, Into the Fire, you know that Meyers credits much of what he did that day to earn the Medal of Honor was due to Swenson’s own heroism under withering gunfire from three sides of a gully in which were trapped scores of allies who lived to see the end of the day only because of Swenson’s and Meyer’s actions.
According to the Army Times, Swenson’s nomination is stalled at the White House and we are left to assume that it was Swenson’s attack on the rules of engagement which prevented the operation from getting any supporting fires to extract the element that was trapped under enemy fire. That is the only logical conclusion at which a rational person can arrive – his nomination has stagnated because of political vindictiveness.
Category: Real Soldiers
Hope they get it right this time, bunch of PC POG’s deciding a Heros Fate….. I agree completely that he would have received the MOH except for the fact he had blasted the ROE!
Disgusting. We are told ALL the time that candor is a valued trait in any officer….except when it’s not. At the end of the day, officers got relieved because they didn’t honor the request for fire support.
No award of ANY KIND for CPT Swenson has an extreme odor of vindictivenss to it.
Seems that there’s a great deal of fear that if he’s projected into the national spotlight by receiving the MOH, and has a chance to sit next to Letterman on the Late Show, as have all living recipients, he might express that same candor for the fucked up ROEs that he was under that day.
THAT won’t play well
Valor is valor…more men might have been lost if not for his leadership under fire.
Lets face it the headshed is worried a MoH winner may not be a cheerleader for OEF, and may go off script. this goes back to the previous admin also with tis dearth of recognizing valor above and beyond except posthumously
I look at it this way–every LIVING recipient of the MOH from Iraq/Afghanistan is enlisted so far. Now we have an officer recipient who can’t be kept on the short leash and who has already shown he won’t play the PC-bullshit game.
Frankly, the reasons that have been given for his not being awarded the MOH sicken me.
Vindictiveness from this administration?
So they can’t be seriously concerned he would dishonor himself on a national stage, I mean the number of sh1tbag senior officers who’ve been caught stealing, or f#cking their subordinates lately would fill a trailways bus…..
Now we have an officer who is the real deal stone cold hero and all the officers with stars who are more political than honorable are concerned he might criticize a policy that gets soldiers killed?
Explain to me what the new recruiting motto will be….hmm maybe this, Join the military and do heroic deeds only to get f#cked over by sh1tbags who cheat on their wives and steal money that was supposed to be used to run their commands……what a pile of turds.
Guys, as an officer, I can tell you it’s not the good ones that get ahead. It’s the conniving, asskissing, shitweasles. The ones that kiss the COL’s ass. The ones that write themselves up for awards. The ones that take credit for their junior officers ops. Those are the guys that end up as GO’s, not good officers. The good officers are few and far between, and the ones with the integrity to stand up and call out the bullcrap when they see it are promptly squashed. The Petraus’s and McCrystals and Mattis’s are few and far between. What happened to CPT Swenson is, I feel, a symptom of a far larger problem in the ranks of our officer corps. He did something truly worth recognition, got pissed because he didn’t have the promised support, let fly with his real feeling about in the TOC, and some MAJ or LTC running things got his knickers in a know, and made a few calls. One person whispered to another, and the good old boys network activated, and the citation got the circular file. This is a classic example of chickenshit office politics. ‘I don’t like what he has to say, so he’s going to suffer administratively’
There are more CS ticket punchers than Honorable Os . Joe
I hope they do the right thing and push it through this time.
In almost every book I’ve read about modern military actions, including Into the Fire, there is at least one officer, and usually several more, who make decisions based on advancing their careers instead of protecting troops and winning the fight. What happened in The Outpost was am especially grievous travesty.
@8-I agree with most of what you wrote. I draw the line, though, with the idea that Petraeus and McChrystal are among the “…few and far between”. Petraeus, a married man, led with his crotch when he got the chance and McChrystal lied about the death of a very public figure/soldier and he knowingly forwarded a Silver Star recommendation that contained fabricated statements.
What Sustainer at #2 said. There are asses to be covered. Valor be damned — at least while its human container is still alive and able to discomfort politicians.
/sarc
It is understandable that there is a serious disconnect between those of us who base opinions upon one’s actions and those who base their feelings upon one’s words. No, I don’t condone this sort of thing, but I do understand it.
All valor awards are for deeds, pure and simple. Some folks just cannot get their heads around the concept that doing something heroic transcends political philosophy, religious conviction, literary preferences, or any other opinions. The award for valor is for actions in a small slice of time. That is all.
For what it is worth, folks who were there and survive earned the right to write the history of what occurred. Sure, we all get to have opinions, and to express them, but the weight of truth and reality is on their side.
[…] took lobbying by members of Congress like Duncan Hunter to pry this medal out of the Pentagon because Swenson was fiercely critical of the rules of […]