The Last Man on the Hill

On the morning of July 13, 2008, in a narrow valley in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, a 22-year-old Staff Sergeant from New Hampshire found himself alone on a hilltop. He was bleeding from shrapnel wounds to both legs, his left arm, and his hip. Every other defender at his position was dead or unconscious. Over 200 insurgents were closing on the wire. And Ryan Pitts made a decision: he was going to hold the hill.

He held it with hand grenades. He held it with a radio. He held it long enough for air support to arrive and turn the tide of one of the deadliest engagements of the entire Afghan war. For his actions that morning, Pitts received the Medal of Honor. He has spent every day since making clear that it belongs to the nine men who didn’t come home.

Ryan Pitts grew up in southern New Hampshire, in the Nashua area. By his own telling, he wasn’t a standout in high school. Not a star athlete. Not a scholar with a plan. He’s described himself as an “uncoordinated child” who didn’t know what came next after graduation.

In 2003, at 17 years old, before he’d even finished high school, Pitts enlisted in the United States Army under the Delayed Entry Program. He wasn’t running from anything. He was looking for structure, purpose, and a direction he hadn’t found yet.

Pitts trained at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, as a Fire Support Specialist, better known as a Forward Observer. It’s one of the more demanding jobs in the Army. A Forward Observer embeds with infantry units and serves as their direct line to the firepower of American artillery and air support. The FO’s primary weapon isn’t a rifle. It’s a radio.

The job requires mastery of communications, terrain association, and the math of ballistics and fire geometry. It requires the ability to stay calm when rounds are landing close, because the man on the other end of that radio is adjusting fire based on your voice. If you panic, people die. If you’re precise, you bring hell down on the enemy from miles away.

After completing his training, Pitts earned his jump wings at Fort Benning and was assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza, Italy. The 173rd, the “Sky Soldiers,” is one of the most storied units in the Army, with a combat lineage stretching back to Vietnam.

In early July 2008, Chosen Company was ordered to withdraw from their remote outpost and establish a new position at the village of Wanat. The idea was sound: move closer to the population, disrupt insurgent traffic, lay groundwork for local security.

The execution was troubled from the start. Helicopter assets were scarce. The operation was delayed repeatedly. Negotiations with local elders broadcast American intentions to the enemy. By the time 2nd Platoon arrived at Wanat, there was no element of surprise left.

The terrain was a defender’s nightmare. Wanat sits in a bowl, overlooked from nearly every direction. A small observation post called “OP Topside” was established on a ridge to provide overwatch, but the terraced fields and rock walls around it created dead space that allowed attackers to approach within grenade range without being seen. The soldiers spent five days fortifying positions by hand, filling barriers with rocks and dirt, exhausted, short on water, and weeks from the end of a 15-month deployment.

At 4:20 in the morning, the valley erupted. An estimated 200-plus insurgents launched a coordinated assault. This wasn’t harassment fire. This was a deliberate attempt to overrun the position and kill every American there.

The opening volley was devastating. RPGs and heavy machine gun fire raked both positions. The TOW missile system, their primary heavy weapon, was destroyed immediately. At OP Topside, the nine defenders were engulfed in explosions within minutes. Pitts was blown off his feet, taking severe shrapnel wounds to his right leg, left Achilles, left hip, and left arm. He couldn’t stand.

He crawled to a fighting position. The enemy was close enough that he could hear their voices and see muzzle flashes from the terraced walls meters away. The machine guns at the OP had been silenced. Pitts grabbed hand grenades and started throwing.

He used a technique called “cooking off”: pulling the pin, releasing the spoon, letting the fuse burn for a count, then throwing so the grenade detonates over the enemy or the instant it lands. No time to throw it back. No time to take cover. Grenade after grenade. Denying the breach. Buying seconds that turned into minutes.

Down at the main base, 1st Lieutenant Jonathan Brostrom and Corporal Jason Hovater heard the volume of fire at Topside and knew the OP was being overrun. They grabbed ammunition and sprinted up the terraced hillside through a wall of enemy fire. Both were killed shortly after reaching the position. Their run up that hill bought the defenders critical time.

Sergeant Israel Garcia, Pitts’ close friend, fought at the OP until he was mortally wounded. Pitts crawled to him and held his hand. Garcia’s last words were a request: tell my family I love them. Pitts kept that promise when the unit returned to Italy.

At one point, the return fire from every other defender at the OP had gone silent. Pitts was alone in the fight. He later said he reconciled himself with death, deciding that if he was going to die on that hill, he’d take as many of the enemy with him as he could.

Bleeding heavily and barely conscious, Pitts crawled to the radio. The command post had lost contact with Topside and didn’t know if the position had been overrun. If the enemy held the hilltop, calling air support onto it could kill surviving Americans.

Pitts whispered into the handset. He identified himself. He reported his situation. And then he did the thing he’d trained his entire career to do: he called for fire. He directed mortar and artillery strikes dangerously close to his own position, “danger close” missions where the margin between killing the enemy and killing yourself is measured in meters.

His voice on that radio was the thread that held everything together. It told the battalion commander that the OP was still in American hands. It allowed the command post to direct the AH-64 Apaches and A-10 Thunderbolts when they arrived. The air assets hammered the insurgent positions, and the enemy withdrew. When the Quick Reaction Force finally reached OP Topside, they found Pitts still on the radio.

Nine American soldiers were killed at Wanat. Twenty-seven were wounded. It was the deadliest single engagement for the U.S. military in Afghanistan since Operation Red Wings in 2005.

1st Lieutenant Jonathan Brostrom, 24, the platoon leader who died leading the reinforcement up the hill. Sergeant Israel Garcia, 24, the squad leader who spent his final moments thinking of his family. Corporal Jonathan Ayers, 24, who kept firing after taking a bullet to the helmet. Corporal Jason Bogar, 25, who split his time between shooting and treating the wounded. Corporal Jason Hovater, 24, who ran into the fire alongside his lieutenant. Corporal Matthew Phillips, 27, who fought at the main perimeter. Corporal Pruitt Rainey, 22, who fought at the OP. Corporal Gunnar Zwilling, 20, the youngest of the fallen. Specialist Sergio Abad, 21, who was hit in the opening barrage.

These are the names Ryan Pitts carries. When he received the Medal of Honor at the White House in 2014, he said: “It is their names, not mine.” President Obama asked the surviving members of Chosen Company and the families of the fallen to stand. Pitts didn’t smile. His face carried the weight of the men he’d lost.

Pitts was medically discharged in 2009 due to his leg injuries. He enrolled at the University of New Hampshire on the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, graduated in 2013 with a degree in Business, and went to work in the software industry. He’s used his platform to advocate for veterans through the Hiring Our Heroes initiative, making the case that hiring veterans isn’t charity but a smart business decision.

He’s been open about survivor’s guilt and the psychological cost of combat, and about the fact that the way to honor the dead isn’t to live in sorrow but to live the full life they were denied. He lives in Nashua, New Hampshire, with his wife Amy and their children. He keeps a memorial table at home with the names of the nine men from Wanat. A reminder of the obligation to live well.

Ryan Pitts didn’t enlist because he had it all figured out. He enlisted because he was looking for something. And when the worst morning of his life arrived, he didn’t quit. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t stand, and he didn’t stop fighting.

When every weapon system had been destroyed and every other defender had fallen silent, the defense of OP Topside came down to one wounded man with a bag of grenades and a radio. That’s not a Hollywood script. That’s what actually happened. And when it was over, Pitts didn’t claim the glory. He pointed to the men who paid the price.

That’s what a warrior looks like. Not the man who seeks the spotlight, but the man who carries the names.

This story is part of the American Warrior Campaign, Swampfox's tribute to 250 years of American fighters, from the Revolution to the Global War on Terror. Explore the full campaign, gear, and the warriors who held the line at americanwarrior250.com.

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