Free Republic

In the newly released 1.5-minute Air Force video, a figure identified as Chapman can be seen charging up a steep slope toward enemy positions atop the 10,000-foot peak... Chapman and SEAL team leader Britt Slabinski teamed up to attack enemy positions. After assaulting the first of two positions, identified as bunkers in the footage, Chapman abandons cover to attack a second position where an enemy machine gun was firing on his team, when he is wounded.

It was March 4, 2002. American special operations forces were fighting to establish observation posts high above Afghanistan’s Shah-i-Kot Valley, as conventional troops continued their push through the valley floor below. One of those men, Air Force Technical Sgt. John Chapman, was alone in the pitch-black, wounded and slowly regaining his consciousness in the thigh-deep snow of a 10,469-foot peak known as Takur Ghar, as scores of Al Qaeda fighters closed in. The operators were due to lift-off from their Gardez base around midnight and quietly land near the base of the peak before climbing to the top. But maintenance...

Pope combat controller awarded Air Force Crossby Airman 1st Class Jason A. Neal43rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs01/13/03 - POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. (AFPN) -- Senior Air Force leaders awarded the Air Force Cross to Tech. Sgt. John Chapman here Jan. 10. RELATED LINKS Printable Version Chapman, a combat controller killed in Afghanistan while saving the lives of his entire team, was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross, which is second only to the Medal of Honor as an award for valor. Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche said Chapman was "an American's American" and a hero....

John Chapman among 7 killed in Afghanistan trying to rescue comrade Wednesday, March 13, 2002 By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer WINDBER, Pa. -- He was born in Connecticut; he wasn't a hometown boy. Truth is, most of the 4,600 people around this northern Somerset County town didn't even know Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman. As Air Force Tech Sgt. John Chapman's casket is lowered into the ground in Windber, Somerset County, one of his team members is consoled; another stands at attention. Chapman was one of seven soldiers who died in the mountains of east Afghanistan when they...

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2002 – The battle on an Afghan mountaintop called Takur Ghar is a story of American courage and bravery. It is a story of a small band of highly trained professionals overcoming the fog and friction of war. It is also at heart, a story of Americans service members' unwillingness to leave one of their own behind. The battle featured special operations forces from all three services. Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and pilots and Air Force combat controllers and pararescuemen fought against entrenched al Qaeda fighters atop a 10,000-foot mountain. According to an executive summary of the...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — They call it the Battle of Roberts Ridge.The 15-hour firefight cost more American lives — seven — than any other engagement in the war against terrorism. It was named after the first American to die amidst the snowy, 10,000-foot mountains of eastern Afghanistan. But so many troops performed with such extraordinary courage during that long night and day that it could just as easily have been named after any one of at least a dozen men. This is the story of that March 4 battle, and of one of those heroes.A fusillade of fireIt...

Former Fort Myers teacher among U.S. casualties in Afghanistan [left teaching for more pay in army] Army Ranger, Marc A. Anderson - a former math teacher at a FL public school. Wednesday, March 6, 2002 By MARY KELLI BRIDGES, mkbridges@naplesnews.com and KARIE PARTINGTON, kjpartington@naplesnews.com Students in Cathy Kane's Fort Myers Middle School social studies class watched on television Tuesday as the flag-draped coffins of seven soldiers were carried off a plane in Germany. They knew that the body of Army Ranger Spc. Marc A. Anderson — a former teacher at the school — was among them. The 30-year-old Anderson ...

“Memory n. 1. The mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience; the ability to remember. 2. An act or instance of remembrance; a recollection… see smer in Appendix.” “smer – to remember. In Germanic murnon, to remember sorrowfully, in Old English murnan, to mourn.” I remember Chuck Meerholz and the day I was supposed to drive. After four months with B Company, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor; four months of on-the-job-training for a guy trained as an infantrymen, I was being taught to drive our tank. B Company was to participate in a big operation centered on the village of...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. military has not changed any procedures or equipment in its war in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said, despite a review of a deadly firefight that found communications problems including one that sent a helicopter into a harrowing crossfire.</p>