The heroic actions of Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant John A. Chapman are recounted in a compelling book.
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The training to become a special operations combat controller is considered more rigorous than any of the other special forces. Only one in ten makes it through training, and even going beyond, they attend multiple joint schools, including military SCUBA, Army static-line and freefall, air traffic control, and combat control schools. Sergeant John A. Chapman was one of those elite few, and he is remembered as someone who could handle any task put in front of him.
His story is told in “Alone at Dawn: Medal of Honor John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World’s Deadliest Special Operations Force” by Dan Schilling and Lori Chapman Longfritz. This is a book we would recommend to every one of our subscribers. It is a compelling recreation of one of the most amazing stories of combat skill, courage, and determination we have ever read.
Chapman was an airman with the rank of technical sergeant who served as a special operations combat controller. These are battlefield airmen who are assigned to special tactics squadrons. They deploy with air and ground forces in support of direct action such as counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, and combat search and rescue. There is much to Chapman’s story, but we will focus on the battle that earned him the Medal of Honor, The Battle of Takur Ghar.
In conjunction with Operation Anaconda in March 2002, small reconnaissance teams were tasked to establish observation posts in strategic locations in Afghanistan. When able, direct U.S. airpower was used to destroy enemy targets. The mountain of Takur Ghar was an ideal spot for such an observation post with excellent visibility to key locations. For Sergeant Chapman and his joint special operations teammates, the mission on the night of March 3 was to establish a reconnaissance position on Takur Ghar and report Al-Qaeda movement in the Sahi-Kowt area.
During the initial insertion onto Afghanistan’s Takur Ghar mountaintop on March 4, the MH-47 “Chinook” helicopter carrying Sergeant Chapman and the joint special operations reconnaissance team was ambushed. Included in this action were members of SEAL Team Six.
A rocket-propelled grenade struck the helicopter and bullets ripped through the fuselage. The blast ripped through the left side of the Chinook, throwing Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts off the ramp of the helicopter onto the enemy-infested mountaintop below.
The severely damaged aircraft was unable to return for Petty Officer Roberts and performed a controlled crash landing a few miles from the mountaintop. Thus began the chain of events that led to unparalleled acts of valor by numerous joint special operations forces, the deaths of seven U.S. servicemen, and 16 years later, a posthumous award of the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Chapman.
Alone, against the elements, and separated from his team with enemy personnel closing in, Petty Officer Roberts was in desperate need of support. The remaining joint special operations team members, fully aware of his precarious situation, immediately began planning a daring rescue attempt that included returning to the top of Takur Ghar where they had just taken heavy enemy fire.
As the team returned to Petty Officer Roberts’ last-known position, now on a second MH-47, the entrenched enemy forces immediately engaged the approaching helicopter with heavy fire. Miraculously, the helicopter, although heavily damaged, was able to successfully offload the remaining special operations team members and return to base. Sergeant Chapman, upon exiting the helicopter, immediately charged uphill through the snow toward enemy positions while under heavy fire from three directions. He single-handedly took out two of the enemy in a bunker.
As the team began taking machine gun fire from another fortified enemy position only 12 meters away, Sergeant Chapman deliberately moved into the open to engage the new enemy position. As he heroically fought the enemy, he was struck by a burst of gunfire. Miraculously Sergeant Chapman regained his faculties and continued to fight relentlessly despite his severe wounds. He exposed himself to fire from a second position and protected the bulk of the remaining Seal and Delta force.
In doing so, he battled multiple enemy fighters for 40 minutes. By the time the quick reaction force arrived, Sergeant Chapman had paid the ultimate sacrifice. In the performance of these remarkably heroic actions, Sergeant Chapman is credited with saving the lives of 23 of his teammates.
Sergeant Chapman was originally awarded the Air Force Cross for his actions, but following a review of Air Force Cross and Silver Star recipients directed by then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, the Secretary of the Air Force recommended Sergeant Chapman’s Air Force Cross be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. This posthumous award was presented to Valerie Chapman Nessel on August 22, 2018.
In the book, there is a photo of a SEAL Team Six Memorial where Chapman is the first non-SEAL whose name appears on the shrine.
Allow me to quote the authors: “…today’s Combat Controllers remain the deadliest individuals to walk in the history of warfare, with power and expertise to orchestrate the destruction of key strategic targets or hundreds of enemy at a time on any battleground onto which they step…”
I urge our readers to go online and search for the John A. Chapman Medal of Honor. There you will find the most incredible video of the actual scenes we just recounted. You will be amazed. The voice describing the action is Dan Schilling, a 30-year veteran and a hero in the “Black Hawk Down” operation in October 1993, where he saved two lives.
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