David Petraeus Sought Downgrade of Delayed Medal of Honor for Army Captain's

Soldier's file was scrubbed, never sent up chain of command. No one held responsible

A Pentagon probe into the mishandling of hero Army Capt. William Swenson's Medal of Honor nomination found retired Army Gen. David Petraeus had sought to downgrade it, but shed no light on why the soldier's file was scrubbed from military computers and never passed up the chain of command.

Swenson, who was nominated for the military's most prestigious award for helping to extract fellow soldiers from a 2009 ambush in Afghanistan's Ganjgal Valley, was given the medal last month by President Obama based on a duplicate file. He and his advocates have expressed bitterness over the fact that his nomination was stalled for four years, and his papers mysteriously purged from Army computers.