Col william ostlund bio

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A great warrior reflects on 36-year career

WEST POINT, NY -- For more than 400 days in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan, Col. William Ostlund refused to let himself cry.

A lieutenant colonel at the time, Ostlund was the battalion commander for Task Force Rock, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Six hours into a 425-day tour in an area partially dubbed both the Valley of Death and the Valley of Fire, the battalion lost its first Soldier.

Hours after he assumed command of the area, Ostlund's Soldiers found themselves in a firefight where their youngest paratrooper was killed. Pvt. Timothy Vimoto, the son of the Brigade Sergeant Major, was the first of 26 Soldiers killed and 143 wounded as they faced nearly daily combat and more than 1,000 contacts with the enemy during their tour.

Through each of the phone calls to the deceased Soldiers' families, sometimes as many as five calls per Soldier, Ostlund held his emotions in check. As he made those calls, other Soldiers under his command were risking their lives in battles of their own, waging the war they were trained to fight and doing the job they had volunteered to perform.

A father to three boys of his own, Ostlund, who led six combat tours during his Army career, would adopt the Soldiers und

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Colonel (retired), Author, Corporate Security

William B. Ostlund

Enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1983, Colonel(r) Bill Ostlund served with the 1st Battalion, 75th Rangers and was stationed at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia through 1987. As a Staff Sergeant he transitioned to the Nebraska National Guard’s Long Range Surveillance Detachment and simultaneously enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and joined their ROTC program.

Bill was commissioned as a Distinguished Military Graduate in the Infantry and re-entered the active Army in 1990. He served as a Platoon Leader and Company Executive Officer in 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment – 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). This tour included service in OPERATION DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. He was then assigned to 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment where he again served as a Platoon Leader and a Company Executive Officer. Bill commanded B Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry (mechanized) in the Republic of Korea and then attended graduate school at The Fletcher School, Tufts University - completing his PhD coursework - prior to being assigned as an Assistant Professor in the United States Military Academy’s Department of Social Sciences where he taught American Politics and International Security Studies. B