Although Army Capt. Greg Ambrosia’s tour at a secluded combat outpost in Afghanistan was somewhat primitive, with few luxuries and the bare essentials, his mission of counterinsurgency was quite complex. Ambrosia, executive officer of Company A, and his troops often found themselves patrolling the rugged Pech Valley and surrounding areas for days at a time with little contact with the rest of the world. However, on Sept. 25, 2007, they encountered a Taliban force that not only outnumbered but surrounded them.

Ambrosia and his men set up a makeshift outpost after a nighttime air assault into the valley. The troopers made contact with the enemy early the next morning, receiving a hail of rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire. But they couldn’t spot where exactly the attack was coming from, he said.

“We spotted an enemy scout and eventually made contact, but he was able to [disengage and communicate] our location to other fighters in the valley,” Ambrosia explained.

Ambrosia’s element had a translator monitoring the enemy communication with a basic one-way radio. After the initial contact, it was quiet for about 45 minutes. The interpreter continued to monitor the radio, and Ambrosia learned that the scout was coordinating with other enemy fighters in the area to launch an attack, he explained. Soon there were at least three enemy elements with three to five fighters each closing in on the platoon. So close, in fact, they were in hand grenade range of his troops, he said.