War Heroes VI - John Chapman

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Previous War Heroes Threads - Brian Chontosh
Jason Dean Cunningham
Britt Slabinski
Justin D. Lehew
Mark E. Mitchell

The President of the United States
Takes Pride in Presenting
The Air Force Cross
To

John Chapman
U.S. Air Force

For Services as Set Forth in the Following Citation:

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Title 10, Section 8742, U.S.C., awards the Air Force Cross to TSgt John Chapman for extraordinary heroism in military operation against an armed enemy of the United States as a 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Combat Controller in the vicinity of Gardez, in the eastern highlands of Afghanistan, on 4 March 2002.

On this date, during his helicopter insertion for a reconnaissance and time sensitive targeting close air support mission, Sergeant Chapman’s aircraft came under heavy machine gun fire and received a direct hit from a rocket propelled grenade which caused a United States Navy sea-air-land team member to fall from the aircraft.

Though heavily damaged, the aircraft egressed the area and made an emergency landing seven kilometers away. Once on the ground Sergeant Chapman established communication with an AC-130 gunship to insure the area was secure while providing close air support coverage for the entire team. He then directed the gunship to begin the search for the missing team member.

He requested, coordinated, and controlled the helicopter that extracted the stranded team and aircrew members. These actions limited the exposure of the aircrew and team to hostile fire.

Without regard for his own life Sergeant Chapman volunteered to rescue his missing team member from an enemy strong hold. Shortly after insertion, the team made contact with the enemy. Sergeant Chapman engaged and killed two enemy personnel.

He continued to advance reaching the enemy position then engaged a second enemy position, a dug-in machine gun nest. At this time the rescue team came under effective enemy fire from three directions. From close range he exchanged fire with the enemy from minimum personal cover until he succumbed to multiple wounds.

His engagement and destruction of the first enemy position and advancement on the second position enabled his team to move to cover and break enemy contact. In his own words, his Navy sea-air-land team leader credits Sergeant Chapman unequivocally with saving the lives of the entire rescue team.

Through his extraordinary heroism, superb airmanship, aggressiveness in the face of the enemy, and the dedication to the service of his country, Sergeant Chapman reflects the highest credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.

This thread should be read in conjunction with that of Britt Slabinski, linked above. It seems lots of heroes were made on that day, in that engagement.

Rest in peace, TSgt John Chapman.

2

Stop the war. Bring the troops home now.

3

zero, please stop. Go to GD to debate the merits of military conflict. I know you’ll get plenty of takers. Don’t be so arrogant to believe that your comments are needed here. If it bothers you so much then don’t open the thread. I hope a mod will come by and say something similar.

4

Ditto to what Loach said. This man did not asked to be sent to Iraq to fight this senseless war, but he gave his life in courageous service to his fellow American troops. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have a politics-free zone in these threads so that readers can reflect on this sacrifice. There are plenty of other threads to be as pro-war or anti-war as one would like.

5

If asked by one of the MPSIMS mods or an Administrator, I will stop, though I would strongly disagree with their judgement in the matter. Mr. Moto’s actions, however, are hardly ‘politics-free’. There are numberless acts of real heroism, bravery, and sacrifice performed by men and women around the world, both in and out of uniform. They go largely unsung and unnoticed. Why focus specifically, then, on such acts in two wars that lack any moral or ethical justification, if not to say "Look what good this war is for us; it allows American men and women to perform acts the government deems ‘bravery’ "?

Mr. Moto clearly has an opinion on the war and it cannot be hidden behind the claims of “I’m just singing the praises of people whose praises don’t get sung loud enough, IMO”. I feel very strongly that this opinion should not go uncountered, and I’m trying to do it in a manner that is not intentionally provocative or that attacks Mr. Moto rather than the opinions he expresses. There is nothing praiseworthy about men and women giving their lives for no good reason whatsoever, and until told otherwise I choose to continue to say:

Stop the war. Bring the troops home now.

6

For the most part, these threads have been very nonpolitical. The exceptions were the first one, which raised some interesting (and one not so nice) discussions, and Olentzero’s continuing, two sentence contribution.

He always ignores these threads after he gets his aside in, and has been debating their necessity, on this board, in a separate Pit thread.

So it’s no big deal, really. But if anybody wants to take him to task for this intrusion, they should do it there, not here.

7

Incidentally, at this time, there will be only nine total War Heroes threads.

This number reflects the number of Air Force Crosses(2) Distinguished Service Crosses(1) and Navy Crosses(6) awarded in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These medals are equivalent, and are second only to the Medal of Honor. They are awarded very rarely indeed, as can be seen here. Only nine awards, so far, out of the thousands of servicemen and women involved in these conflicts.

There are other war heroes, though. And they aren’t getting much press coverage either.

John Kerry’s heroism in Vietnam earned him a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. These medals have been awarded many times in Afghanistan and Iraq. But this is met with deafening silence here.

I continue to believe such lack of recognition is unjust.

8

Of course you can infer from the nature of the posts some “politics”. However this still is not the place to debate the posts. Don’t read them if you don’t want. It is arrogant to think that we need your two line post in each one of these threads. We don’t. You don’t agree, we got it. Now stop.

9

I make no assumptions as to what you or anyone who reads these threads think they need. I wish to express my opinion on the subject, and wish to do so in a way that does not derail the thread into Pitworthy flaming or full-blown debates about the justification for the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. I could say “You support the war; we get it. Now stop.” every time Mr. Moto posted one of these citation threads, but I strongly suspect there’s as much chance of him acceding to my requests as there is of me acceding to yours.

10

I disagree. It appears that most of the posters to these threads have kept their opinions of the war to themselves, as the threads are not about the war itself, but the men and women who are fighting it, whether they chose to or not.

11

I disagree. Opinions on the war are implicit in these threads. I’ve stated my reasoning in the Pit thread Mr. Moto linked to, but I’ll try to state it simply again.

These threads are ostensibly about citations for bravery. Those acts of bravery, with one exception (Cunningham), involve killing other human beings. The act of killing is not in and of itself brave, and is generally subject to moral censure and legal punishment outside of two conditions - self-defense and military combat.

So. We have a situation in which 5 out of 6 men killed several dozen other human beings between them, in a situation of military combat. As was pointed out (I think by Mtgman) in the Pit thread, Dopers would react differently to such an incident depending on who killed whom. If one Iraqi resistance member killed 20 US soldiers in one firefight, a lot more shock and anger would have been expressed on the boards than there was when Mr. Moto posted the first citation thread about Capt. Chontosh. This reflects the fact that many Dopers view the US as doing the right thing in Iraq. Killing in war only becomes laudable, not just acceptable (and by that I mean it is recognized as an unfortunate necessity given the situation), when that war and the cause thereof is viewed as good and just. Therefore trumpeting citations for bravery (read: the mass killing of enemy combatants) in wartime implicitly carries with it an endorsement of the war though it may not be explicitly stated (as Mr. Moto has not done). Just because such an opinion is not explicitly stated doesn’t mean it’s not stated at all, and IMO still deserves to be openly countered.

12

Agreed. Counter all you want. In the proper forum.

13

Point of clarification: when I said that the airman in the OP didn’t ask to be sent to “Iraq to fight this senseless war,” I really meant to say “Afghanistan to fight that well-justified war.”

I still think that Iraq is a senseless war, but I maintain my highest respect for the actions of Sgt Chapman, regardless of where his heroic actions may have occured.

14

If and when an MPSIMS Mod, or an Admin, decides that this is not the proper forum for what I’ve been doing - and they’ve had no less than six opportunities to do so now - then I’ll take my activities elsewhere. For now, why don’t you leave the modding job to them?

15

Thank you and rest in peace Sgt Chapman.

And a heartfelt thanks to all of the other heroes, sung and unsung, who sacrifice for their fellow human beings.

Too often we think not of the brave, the selfless, the dedicated and the strong as we make headlines out of the wrongdoers.

16

Quick update to this story, worthy of a bump.

The U.S. Navy is renaming one of its cargo ships in the Military Sealift Command after TSgt Chapman.

From this site.