Then an Army sergeant, Matthew Williams served as a weapons sergeant with Operational Detachment Alpha 3336, Special Operations Task Force 11, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan. On April 6, 2008, the detachment was on a mission in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province to capture or kill high-value insurgent targets. Now an Army master sergeant, Williams will receive the Medal of Honor at the White House on October 30, 2019.
Transcript
Master Sergeant Matthew Williams: So, it was very early morning. You know, and the mission was just to, basically, kill, capture high-value HAIG commander that was located up in Shok Valley with an undetermined amount of fighters. Made the flight in. Once we got there, helicopters came to hover. We were expecting to land in this river bottom, and they just kind of kept hovering. So, we were, kind of looked at the crew chief, and he was, just told us to go. Then we looked down. It was like it was about a 10-foot drop-off, unfortunately. It was just rocky and a lot more treacherous than we thought, which was, you know, not a great way to start the day. So, I remember specifically at that point those of us in our element that was out on the riverbed, basically, we immediately just found cover behind some rocks. It was kind of quiet, and then, all of a sudden, it just, everything kind of exploded all at once. Machine-gun fire, some RPGs started going off, and then started returning fire up towards the village. That’s kind of when things started getting a little haywire. Once we got up there, we saw that, you know, that Dylan was shot and then Luis was shot. Everybody else was kind of hunkered down, had decent cover, but not the best cover. Scott and I kind of, with the captain, kind of looked around tried to figure out exactly what we wanted to do, how we were gonna get the wounded guys out of there, and then, you know, see what made sense from that point. I went down, about halfway down, called a couple more of our guys and and asked them to bring more commandos up, so we can basically make a kind of a chain to help pass these casualties down ’cause they were going to be on litters. I went up, I went back up to kind of see, assess that situation and then really figure out, okay, like how we’re gonna handle this. And Scott was ambulatory, so, I mean, he could walk. He’d already had a tourniquet put on his upper left arm, here, was shot, so I was basically able just to, kind of, get him up on his feet and then helped him kind of climb down. I passed him, I gave him to Seth and asked that to take him there’s like a little house down kind of towards almost at the river bottom. And that’s where John was. His leg, he’d been shot in the leg. It basically was amputated, so he wasn’t able to move, and then Ron still had Dylan and Luis to deal with who, neither them could move, either. Luis was shot in the ankle, and then Dylan in the hip. So, I went back down about halfway again, trying to establish a way, like a corridor, I could move these guys through. I knew we couldn’t go up the same way that I’d gone the other times just because it had been getting pretty heavy fire. So we, there was, like, kind of a cliff face that went around to, like, a little outcropping. So, basically, I saw if we could scale across that we could get onto this outcropping and then we’d be able to come up from behind where those other guys were. Once we got linked up with everybody, Seth kind of pushed forward with his, his sniper rifle, and was helping to provide cover. Dave and them had already found a route down and were helping to move casualties, so we just continued to pull everybody else off that was up there, made sure we had all of our gear, and then made our way down. We basically had to hold our ground the best we could so the the medevac birds were comfortable enough flying in to exfil those casualties and then, you know, then go from there; so, and they were taking fire the whole entire time, so they were awesome pilots. But they came in and and really, I mean, they saved the day really, helping those guys get out of there. But I think that day, one of the worst predicaments that I’ve been in in my life at that point. The experience from that has helped me, I think, through my whole entire career just remain level-headed and focus on what needs to happen as opposed to what is happening. My current team leader always jokes that my heart rate never gets above 50. He’s always wondering, like, why do I never get excited. Well, there’s really nothing to get excited about right now.
Kate Williams: I’m very proud of him, and I’ve always thought that he can do anything and deserves anything that comes to him. But this award is really obviously a step above everything else. I was extremely proud of the Silver Star.
Master Sergeant Matthew Williams: I think it’s an honor for, it’s an honor for me to receive it on on behalf of the Special Forces Regiment, really, and, kind of, hopefully, you know, represent the regiment in a, in a positive manner. And really kind of help get the story out about, you know, what it is that, that we’re actually doing, and what Green Berets are actually capable of.