In August 2018, 16 years after John A Chapman’s heroic last stand in Afghanistan, Valerie Nessel, his widow, stood in the East Room of the White House surrounded by family members as they accepted Chapman’s Medal of Honor. Upon the awarding of this medal, President Donald Trump remarked: “Our nation is rich with blessings, but our greatest blessings of all are the patriots like John… who… carry our freedom on their shoulders, march into the face of evil, and fight to their very last breath so that we can live in freedom, and safety, and peace.”
Chapman was always known as a man who put others before himself, and it was in that spirit that he enlisted in the US Air Force on 27 September 1985, being assigned soon after as an information systems operator. However, he had always wanted to be abecoming an expert in immediate deployment and reconnaissance operations, among other roles. One of his trainers recalled that Chapman used to smirk during training as it was “too easy”, and the trainer agreed that it was “too easy for John”.
