The battle for Shal Mountain, dubbed “Operation Rugged Sarak,” went from Oct. 8-15, 2011. Shal Mountain sat above Shal Valley and controlled two important supply routes, one vital to coalition forces for resupply and one critical to insurgent smuggling between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The insurgents controlled the mountain for years, but the men of B Company, 2-27th Infantry Regiment, decided to finally wrest control of it from the Taliban after two U.S. convoys were attacked from there, killing two soldiers. The battle for the summit would rage for eight days.
Specialist Jeffrey Conn was the Army medic who responded to the second convoy attack and was the medic on top of Shal Mountain during the fight for the summit. On the mountaintop, he would earn a Silver Star for saving the lives of at least nine U.S. and Afghan soldiers while also taking the lives of many insurgents — at least 12 in a single attack.
Read more about how Conn saved the lives of these men on Shal Mountain here.