A Retreat Under Fire 
 
 Chief Slabinski’s team was ordered to establish an observation post on top of the mountain, Takur Ghar, during Operation Anaconda, an effort to encircle and destroy Qaeda forces in the Shah-i-Kot Valley in eastern Afghanistan, about 25 miles from Pakistan. The battle occurred less than three months after bin Laden had escaped at Tora Bora, and American commanders still hoped to capture or kill senior Qaeda leaders. 
 
 Chief Slabinski’s plan was to land by helicopter near the base of the 10,000-foot mountain around midnight and climb up stealthily, but a series of delays involving aircraft left no time to do that before dawn. Under pressure from superiors, he said, he reluctantly flew to the peak at about 3 a.m. 
 
 Unbeknown to the SEALs, Qaeda forces were already there, and they hit the helicopter with heavy fire. One of Chief Slabinski’s men, Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts, fell out about 10 feet above the ground, and the pilot could not retrieve him before the stricken aircraft crash-landed a few miles away. 
 
 Shortly before 5 a.m., the five remaining SEALs and Sergeant Chapman returned to the top — later called “Roberts Ridge” — on another helicopter to try to rescue Petty Officer Roberts. They did not know that enemy fighters had already killed and tried to decapitate him. 
 
 The Americans were again met by a withering barrage. Rushing through thigh-deep snow, Sergeant Chapman charged ahead of Chief Slabinski, and they killed two fighters in a bunker — a hole dug in the ground under a tree — before the airman was wounded. 
 
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 Under fire, the SEALs retreated about 15 minutes later. Chief Slabinski’s plan, he said, was to take cover and let a circling Air Force gunship hammer the Qaeda fighters before trying again to seize the peak and recover Sergeant Chapman’s body. 
 
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 But grenades and mortar fire drove the SEALs farther down the mountain, making it impossible to return. Three Army Rangers, an Army helicopter crewman and another Air Force commando were killed later that morning after arriving as reinforcements. 
 
 Almost as soon as the guns fell silent, the accusations started to fly. Some Ranger, Army Special Operations aviation and Air Force special tactics personnel blamed the SEALs for their losses. 
 
 Soon after, the military opened an investigation to determine what had gone wrong. The chief investigator, Lt. Col. Andrew Milani of the Army, wrote later that an Air Force gunship had failed to detect the militants on the mountaintop and that the SEALs had “violated a basic tenet of reconnaissance” by landing directly on their observation post instead of hiking up to it. 
 
 Colonel Milani also looked into footage captured by a Predator drone about 50 minutes after the SEALs had left the mountaintop. The grainy images showed someone in the bunker defending himself against two attackers and killing one with a rifle shot, prompting the question: Who was that? 
 
 Colonel Milani’s investigation remains classified, but an unclassified paper that he wrote in 2003 offered two possible explanations: The Qaeda fighters had become confused and were firing at one another, or Sergeant Chapman, still alive, had resumed fighting. The colonel did not reach a conclusion, based on the evidence he had. But the suggestion that members of one of the military’s most elite Special Operations units might have, even unintentionally, left someone from another service to fight and die alone added to the tensions. 
 
 Sergeant Chapman, a father of two daughters, in 2003 was posthumously awarded an Air Force Cross, a recognition of valor second only to the Medal of Honor, for his initial charge atop the mountain. The citation noted that Chief Slabinski, who received a Navy Cross for his actions in the firefight, had credited the airman “unequivocally with saving the lives of the entire rescue team.” 
 
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 Sergeant Chapman had enlisted in the Air Force as a computer technician, but soon found that he was not suited to a sedentary lifestyle. A former high school diving and soccer star from Windsor Locks, Conn., he transferred into the elite ranks of the Air Force Special Operations Command as a combat controller, a job that involved calling in airstrikes and handling radio communications for SEAL Team 6 and other secretive units. 
 
 By the time he had joined Chief Slabinski’s team in October 2001, he had spent more than a decade in Special Operations and, at 36, was expressing doubts about his ability to keep up, Chief Slabinski said. The chief told him that he had nothing to worry about. 
 
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 New View of a Battle 
 
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 Sergeant Chapman was considered for the Medal of Honor when the secretary of the Air Force, Deborah Lee James, directed the service’s Special Operations Command to review the seven Air Force Crosses awarded since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for possible upgrades. She recently recommended the award to the defense secretary, whose approval is required before it goes to the White House. 
 
 Pentagon policy forbids military officials to talk about potential Medals of Honor, but several officials, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, said that even the sergeant’s initial bravery had stood out. 
 
 Chief Slabinski said he wondered whether the Air Force was motivated as much by hopes of receiving its first Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War as by a desire to fully understand what transpired on the mountain. (Since the Sept. 11 attacks, 12 Army soldiers, three Marines and three SEALs have received the medal for gallantry in Iraq or Afghanistan.) 
 
 A briefing prepared by Air Force special operations officials dismisses as “not viable” Colonel Milani’s suggestion that the gunfight caught on video by the C.I.A. Predator might have involved militants fighting one another, according to people who have received it. That the airman was alive and fighting “is fully supported by the evidence,” the briefing slides state. 
 
 The use of the imagery-enhancement technology to scrutinize the Predator video was central to the findings, particularly when combined with footage, from an AC-130 gunship, that had not been available to Colonel Milani. As the drone circled more than 6,500 feet above the peak, trees and other objects impeded its view, and it had trouble staying locked on to the men in the fight. 
 
 The imagery technology, still being refined in an Air Force lab, enabled the service to assign each person in the blurry videos a “pixel signature” based on his size, his clothing and the weapons he carried, people who have been briefed said. By identifying Sergeant Chapman shortly after he stepped out of the helicopter with the SEALs, the briefing slides say, its imagery analysts could follow him around the mountaintop, picking him up even when trees or other obstacles partly obscured him. 
 
 Outside experts familiar with the technology said having video footage from the gunship as well as from the Predator drone would have provided the analysts with more tracking angles and clarity. 
 
 “That’s two different eyes, and they could fuse that together,” said David J. Kriegman, a computer science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has done research in this area. 
 
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 Based on the analysis, the Air Force believes that Sergeant Chapman was unconscious when Chief Slabinski thought he was dead. The sergeant regained consciousness and began engaging enemy fighters in three directions, the slides suggest. 
 
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 The analysis suggests that Sergeant Chapman crawled into the bunker within 13 minutes of the SEALs’ departure, or at about 5:25 a.m. Then, at 6:00, shortly after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the bunker, he fatally shot a fighter rushing toward him, according to the briefing. 
 
 A few minutes later, another militant crawled to the bunker’s edge, where, at 6:11, the airman killed him in hand-to-hand combat. 
 
 As a Chinook helicopter carrying Ranger reinforcements approached, the Air Force contends, the sergeant rose up in the bunker for a better angle to provide covering fire. He faced machine-gun fire as he tried to relieve the pressure on the Rangers, whose helicopter was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. 
 
 It was only then, with rescue tantalizingly close, that two machine-gun bullets struck the right side of his chest, killing him almost instantly. The Air Force says his death was not captured on video. 
 
 Presented with the Air Force analysis, Colonel Milani submitted an addendum to his paper. “With some of the original uncertainty removed, I can state that the probability now lies more in favor of Chapman surviving the original assault,” he wrote. 
 
 The Air Force’s case includes a new analysis of Sergeant Chapman’s autopsy that found that bruising on his forehead could have happened only if he had been alive, making the hypothesis that he had been briefly knocked out more plausible. 
 
 His body, which was recovered later that day, had nine bullet wounds, five below his waist and four above. The sequence of the injuries is not known. But the two fatal rounds entered at what would have been an impossible angle had he been killed where the SEALs said he had fallen, according to people familiar with the Air Force briefing. 
 
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 Lingering Questions 
 
 A team led by the Air Force’s 24th Special Operations Wing commander, Col. Matthew Davidson, briefed Chief Slabinski on the findings late last year. “I didn’t see anything new,” the chief said. “It was just presented differently.” 
 
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 Colonel Davidson said the Air Force could see Sergeant Chapman “moving in and around the bunker” where he and Chief Slabinski had killed the two enemy fighters, the chief said. 
 
 But because the bunker was under a tree that largely obscured it, this was not clear to Chief Slabinski watching the video. 
 
 “You’ve got these little flashes,” he said. “Here’s a sliver of the pixel here, and then it kind of goes away, and there’s another sliver of it, and here’s some muzzle flash stuff.” 
 
 Chief Slabinski said Sergeant Chapman’s assault rifle had been equipped with a suppressor to mask its muzzle flash, but the video showed the man in the bunker firing a weapon with an unsuppressed muzzle flash. 
 
 The chief also questioned why the man shooting in the video appeared to fire on full automatic, rather than with the single aimed shots that the sergeant would have been trained to use. 
 
 At times, Chief Slabinski said, he feels as if he had never left Takur Ghar. He still has “visions” in which he sees fighters on the mountain moving in slow motion, and hears the sound of grenades and gunfire. He has trouble sleeping, and says he has received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress after a dozen years of war. 
 
 What stays with him the most is that morning he led his team into battle to try to save one man, only to be told later that he had left another fighting for his life. 
 
 “Is it within John’s character to go on and do this? Without a question,” the chief said. “If John did this stuff, I want him to get recognized.” ||||| The Navy Medal of Honor. (Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY) 
 
 WASHINGTON — Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward Byers was the second one through the door as his SEAL Team Six unit raided a Taliban hide-out where an American doctor was held hostage. 
 
 Inside, he saw an unknown man darting for the corner of the room. Not knowing whether the man was a militant grabbing a gun or a hostage diving for cover, Byers tackled him to the floor. When Byers heard the hostage identify himself, he threw himself on top of the doctor to protect him from gunfire, even as he pinned the enemy against the wall with his hand to the enemy's throat. 
 
 Byers' role in the rescue mission, a tightly held secret until Tuesday, has earned him the Medal of Honor, the White House said Tuesday. President Obama will present the highest military honor to Byers at the White House on Feb. 29. 
 
 Byers' commendation cites only "his courageous actions while serving as part of a team that rescued an American civilian being held hostage in Afghanistan, December 8-9, 2012." The awarding of the Medal of Honor provides a unique view into the mission in 2012 to rescue the American doctor and how the elite and secretive Navy SEAL unit operates. 
 
 Dilip Joseph was the medical director for a faith-based Colorado non-profit group establishing medical clinics in remote parts of Afghanistan when he was captured for ransom with his driver and translator. Four days later, having information that Joseph might be moved to Pakistan, U.S. commanders organized a rescue team, according to an unclassified summary of the mission obtained by USA TODAY. 
 
 Byers and the team walked four hours through the Afghan mountains to reach the Taliban compound, arriving shortly after midnight Dec. 9, 2012. Their mission relied on surprise and speed, and everyone on the team volunteered for the mission. "Trading personal security for speed of action was inherent to the success of this rescue mission," a Navy report said. 
 
 Inside, the hostage — going into his fifth day of captivity — heard dogs barking and sheep bleating outside the small stone-and-mud shack. 
 
 Two of his captors went out to investigate, then came back and conferred quietly, evidently seeing nothing outside. 
 
 Joseph had a runny nose and tried to clear it with a well-used handkerchief quietly, so as not to offend Afghan sensibilities about blowing one's nose in public. He was on the edge of sleep when he heard the first gunshots, he recounted in a 2014 book, Kidnapped by the Taliban: A Story of Terror, Hope, and Rescue by SEAL Team Six. 
 
 The SEAL team, about 80 feet from the building, had been spotted by a guard. The forward-most SEAL, Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque, shot at the guard, who escaped inside. Checque followed him and was shot. 
 
 Byers was second through the door. As he tackled an enemy fighter — adjusting his night-vision goggles even as he struggled — a teammate tried to locate the hostage. 
 
 "Is Dilip Joseph here?" the teammate shouted, according to Joseph's account. When he identified himself, one of the SEALs — now known to be Byers — immediately laid down on top of him to protect him from the fighting. Amid the gunfire, Byers calmly asked if he had been fed, if he could walk and if he had been mistreated. 
 
 Even as he did so, Byers pinned the last Taliban fighter to the wall, allowing his fellow team members to shoot and kill him, the Navy report said. 
 
 ​Five Taliban fighters were killed that night. One Navy SEAL — the first one in the door, who the others called Nic — had been shot in the forehead. 
 
 As they waited for a helicopter 12 minutes away, the SEALs protected Joseph by "sandwiching" him between two team members, Joseph said. The one in front of Joseph kept calling to the one behind him, named "Ed," the only other name Joseph heard that night or since. That man, he now knows for the first time, was Byers. 
 
 "What are you doing?" asked the one in front. 
 
 "Praying for Nic," said the one named Ed. "Praying that he'll be OK." 
 
 Byers and other medics attempted to perform CPR on Checque during the ride to Bagram Airfield, where Checque, 28, was pronounced dead. 
 
 The mission has been controversial. In a report on SEAL Team Six last year, The New York Times highlighted discrepancies between Joseph's recollection and the official account. Joseph said that after the shooting stopped, he saw one of the Taliban fighters — a 19-year-old he called Wallakah, whom he had tried to bond with during his captivity — alive, unhurt and apparently subdued. When he returned inside to wait for the helicopter, Wallakah was dead. The Pentagon has disputed that account. 
 
 In an interview with USA TODAY, Joseph portrayed mixed feelings in an attempt to reconcile his overwhelming gratitude to the SEALs with the surgical, fatal nature of the operation. It's that contradiction — the compassion and selflessness of these highly trained special operations forces — that left the most lasting impression of SEAL Team Six. 
 
 "It was amazingly clinical how they handled the whole situation," Joseph said. "They’re just amazing. They’re very good at what they're trained to do. But they're human, too." 
 
 Dilip Joseph was rescued by a group of Navy SEAL Team 6 operators in Afghanistan after being held hostage by Taliban militants. (Photo: Leslye Davis, ZUMA Press/Corbis) 
 
 Joseph caught a rare glimpse of that humanity the next day, when he was granted special access to the "ramp" ceremony for Checque. As he watched the SEAL team solemnly load their fallen comrade's body onto a C-17 cargo plane, Joseph saw tears running down their cheeks. 
 
 "The strength of the Naval Special Warfare community is in its exceptional people. Senior Chief Ed Byers' actions on the battlefield reflect the highest ideals of our profession: bravery, selfless dedication to duty and above all, the highest level of commitment to protect the lives of others and the freedom for which our nation stands," said Rear Adm. Brian Losey, commander of Naval Special Warfare. "We are humbled by Senior Chief Byers' incredible example of service and are proud to call him teammate." 
 
 Only five Navy SEALs have ever been awarded the Medal of Honor, three in Vietnam and one each — posthumously — for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Byers is the first living sailor to be awarded the Medal of Honor since 1998, when President Clinton awarded one retroactively for action in the Vietnam War. 
 
 Navy Sea, Air and Land Teams, known as SEALs, are one of the military's most elite, secretive and storied special operations forces units. It was a similar SEAL Team Six unit that found and killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. 
 
 Though the Pentagon did not confirm that Byers was a member of SEAL Team Six — a unit designation not officially acknowledged — Joseph said his rescuers gave him a rare SEAL military coin with the numeral VI on it. 
 
 Gen. Martin Dempsey, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "strongly recommended" Byers for the Medal of Honor in December 2014, according to a memo obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. 
 
 The unusual delay in awarding the medal stems in part from a recent deployment that prevented him from traveling to Washington, according to a senior Defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. 
 
 Under a 1905 executive order by President Theodore Roosevelt, Medal of Honor recipients are ordered to Washington to have the medal presented by the president. Since 1984, every Medal of Honor ceremony has been at the White House, according to data from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. 
 
 High school yearbook photo of Edward Byers, a 1997 graduate of Otsego High School in Tontogany, Ohio. (Photo: Otsego High School) 
 
 For Byers, the Medal of Honor caps an impressive array of military decorations, including five Bronze Stars with valor, two Purple Hearts, the Joint Service Commendation Medal with valor, three Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals (one with valor), two Combat Action Ribbons, three Presidential Unit Citations, two Joint Meritorious Unit Awards, two Navy Unit Commendations and five Good Conduct Medals. 
 
 Since being trained as a Navy SEAL and combat medic in 2003, he's had eight deployments as a Navy SEAL — seven in combat. Though the exact locations of those assignments are secret, his commendations suggest service in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 
 He was promoted to senior chief special warfare operator two weeks ago, a rank equivalent to master sergeant, according to Department of Defense records. 
 
 Edward Carl Byers Jr. was born in Toledo, Ohio, and graduated from Otsego High School in the small town of Tontogany, Ohio, in 1997. He joined the Navy in September 1998. 
 
 For years, most of what his hometown knew about his military service was a line in the church bulletin of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Toledo, asking parishioners to pray for those serving the country. Though others were listed by rank, the bulletin describes Byers only as a Navy serviceman. 
 
 Byers is the 11th living servicemember to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan. The White House said Tuesday that he would be joined by his family for the White House ceremony later this month. 
 
 He will graduate early this year from Norwich University, a Vermont military college, with a bachelor of science in strategic studies and defense analysis. 
 
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– An incredible tale of bravery may have surfaced thanks to new "pixel signature" technology applied to 14-year-old videos—but it's a complicated revelation. The New York Times reports those videos, shot by overheard aircraft on March 4, 2002, may show Air Force Technical Sergeant John Chapman fighting al-Qaeda militants and killing two while alone on a mountaintop in Afghanistan. What's so shocking about the footage is not just the bravery. It's that Chapman was supposed to be dead. He was originally there with members of SEAL Team 6, providing support as their radioman. In the midst of a fierce and disastrous operation, Senior Chief Petty Officer Britt Slabinski determined the men needed to get off the mountain. Slabinski couldn't verify the wounded Chapman was dead, but he was nearly certain. So a "dead" Chapman was left behind. The Air Force now suspects Chapman was alive for roughly another hour and tried to provide cover for a helicopter carrying Army Ranger reinforcements (three Rangers were among seven Americans to die that day; some say blame rests at the SEALs' feet). The conclusion comes thanks to technology that assigns those on the ground a pixel signature that can be tracked even when ground cover blocks a man from view. The Air Force secretary wants Chapman given the Medal of Honor; SEAL Team 6 has no issue with that, but hasn't taken a stance on whether Chapman was alive. Slabinski is outwardly skeptical, and suggests the Air Force would welcome a Medal of Honor, which it hasn't seen one of its own get since Vietnam. But a fresh look at Chapman's autopsy may provide further proof he was alive. Read the full story at the Times.