Hailing tragic hero
Medal off Honor for airman
President Trump on Wednesday posthumously awarded the Medal off Honor to Air Force Technical Sgt. John Chapman for his heroism during a 2002 rescue mission in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Chapman, who was killed at 36, became only the 19th airman to receive the nation’s highest military honor since the Air Force was created in 1947, and the first to receive the award for action since the Vietnam War.
“John Chapman grew up in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. From a very young age, John was determined to protect those in need,” a solemn Trump said.
Chapman was part of a SEAL rescue team searching for a comrade who had tumbled from a Chinook hhelicopterli dduringi a mission i i to destroy al Qaeda and Taliban forces fortified in mountainside positions in eastern Afghanistan that March.
“John and his teammates were preparing to land onto the mountain when their helicopter was struck by heavy machine-gun fire, and a rocket-propelled grenade. They were under serious attack. As the helicopter lurched away, Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Rob- erts was flung out of the aircraft as the helicopter crash-landed into the valley below,” Trump said at the White House.
Chapman and others volunteered to return to the mountain to rescue Roberts, and came under withering enemy fire from three directions.
He continued charging up the mountain and killed two enemy combatants holed up in a bunker.
“As John fired on [a] second bunker, he was shot and fell to the ground and lost consciousness. Even though he was mortally wounded, John regained consciousness and continued to fight on,” said the president in presenting the medal to Chapman’s widow, Valerie Nessel, who was there with the couple’s two daughters.