5 March
In Windsor Locks, Connecticut, Terry was in her kitchen pulling meat off a chicken carcass to make chicken soup. At 10:30 p.m., she heard a knock at the front door. No one ever went to the front door. Terry says, “If they knew us, they came to the back door. I went into the living room, flipped on the light, and opened the door. All I could say was, ‘No, not my Johnny. Not my Johnny!’ I let them in and yelled for my husband Nicholas as I sat on the couch, crying uncontrollably while they read their statement.”
Around 10:45, Nick called John’s sister Lori. Waking from a dead sleep, she immediately knew something was wrong; no one called her that late. She could hear Terry wailing in the background, and all Nick could muster was, “It’s your brother.” Lori slammed the phone down, woke her daughter, Rachel, and piled her into the car for the five-minute drive, all the while begging, “Please let him just be injured!” A dark vehicle was pulling away from the front of the house, and she knew. Lori bounded up the back steps, where she was met by her mother. Terry fell into her arms as she managed to shriek through halted speech and a torrent of tears, “Johnny’s gone! My Johnny’s gone!”
After hugs and tears, Terry said, “We need to tell Kevin and Tammy. I can’t. I just can’t do it.” Lori called her sister, Tammy, in Vermont first because it was late; Kevin was two hours behind. When Tammy answered, Lori asked, “Is David right there with you?” She didn’t have to say anything else; Tammy knew. She had seen the news but waited for Lori to continue. “We lost John today.” Tammy fell to the floor, where David found her curled into the fetal position.
Rattled, Lori hung up to call Kevin. It was 9:30 Colorado time. When Kevin answered, Lori wasn’t as composed as she tried to be and blurted, “I have bad news. We lost John today.” She gave him time to absorb her words, but he had collapsed onto the floor, unable to speak. Kevin’s wife, Connie, came on the line and, when she heard the news, said, “I have to go. Kevin needs me,” and hung up.
The tidal wave of raw pain coursed toward Michigan to an unsuspecting Gene and his wife, Tess. The Air Force notification team had trouble finding their house, so by the time they arrived, Gene and Tess already knew. Gene passed away in January of 2004, but Tess remembers that night vividly. “We were waiting. I don’t know exactly why they couldn’t find our address, so by the time they came to us, it was already late. They came to the door and they knew we already knew, but they had to tell us anyway. Gene was standing in front of me, and he about…Even though we knew, he still about dropped to the floor.”
Starting the next day, and for more than a week following, while the world continued to spin, time moved in slow motion for the Chapman family as they converged on Fayetteville, North Carolina. The 24 held a memorial service in a giant hangar on Pope AFB. The cavernous building was standing room only, filled with a sea of red berets and blue uniforms as Colonel Rodriguez took the podium to speak of John and his bravery in facing “the jaws of death.” The audience was spellbound. As the family began meeting many of John’s comrades, they started to truly understand the caliber of men John worked alongside; they were cut from the same cloth as he.
Two of those men, Technical Sergeant David Gendron and Staff Sergeant Scott Toner, volunteered to escort John’s body from Dover AFB in Delaware to his final resting place in Windber, Pennsylvania. They were honored to flank John on his final mission.
Valerie thought she would move back to Windber to raise her girls near her parents, so she chose to have John buried there instead of in the country’s heroes’ resting place, Arlington National Cemetery. After the memorial service at Pope, everyone traveled en masse to the small Pennsylvania town. Many of John’s childhood friends made the seven-hour drive from Connecticut to say their final “Goodbye.” Three of them—Brian Topor, David Wrabel, and Michael Toce—traveled together, laughing, crying, and reminiscing about their time with John. By the time they reached Windber, they had decided that the funeral “can’t be it; this can’t be forever for John.”
Windber, with a population of 4,000, was even smaller than John’s hometown, but it had the same “circle the wagons” mentality as Windsor Locks. Word spread quickly that John would be laid to rest there, and townsfolk rallied to welcome his family and friends. As mourners, quite literally, flooded the town, they were greeted by friendly townspeople and American flags lining the streets.
One thousand people passed by John’s open casket at William Kisiel Funeral Home while Gendron and Toner took turns standing rigid and solemn next to him. In the outer rooms of the funeral home, and later in the confines of a hotel bar, childhood friends were meeting John’s 24 brothers for the first time, and they bonded over memories of Chappy. Countless CCT, family, and friends gathered at the hotel’s bar, sharing stories of John, raising a glass, and toasting the nation’s newest hero, eventually running the bar dry. Brian Topor was one of the throng, and he remembers, “The night before the funeral, we went to a hotel and a bunch of the guys [from the 24] were there, and that was our introduction to Combat Control, to John’s other brotherhood. It was overwhelming for me because these guys were…They’re the cream of the crop and they treated us great. The neat part is that these guys are your friends, somebody else’s brother, and even though they may be ordinary people, they are extraordinary in what they do. They’re a different breed, and I saw in them what I saw in John—he had no fear, he was bright…He was very smart…confident. He wasn’t arrogant, he wasn’t reckless. Yeah, he took risks, but there’s a difference between risky and reckless. He didn’t fail.” David Wrabel’s takeaway from meeting John’s 24 teammates was, “It became obvious by listening that he was the exact same Chappy that we knew and loved in childhood.”
The next morning, over four hundred people pressed into St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church for John’s funeral service, including another sea of red berets. John’s younger sister, Tammy, spoke to the congregation about her brother, ending with, “John has always been my hero. Now he’s your hero too.” There weren’t enough tissues to go around as Kevin also spoke about growing up with John, how proud he was of him, and how much he’d miss him. Topor and Wrabel gave the eulogy. “As young kids, we often played Army (or Air Force) and dreamed of one day being Green Berets (or Combat Controllers) and becoming heroes. After we found out John was a member of the 24, we were able to, once again, relive our dreams through him.” At the pulpit, Brian recalled, “I remember a conversation I had with him when he spoke of going to Texas for some training. He was always vague when talking about CCT, so when I asked him, ‘What kind of training?’ he responded, ‘Military training.’ I always hoped that, after retirement, we’d sit back with a few beers and I could coax more stories from John.”
As the miles-long procession serpentined to Saint Mary Byzantine Catholic Church Cemetery, Wrabel recalls, the military’s “sense of their community was forever burned in our minds. We saw an elderly man, obviously a veteran, standing in his front yard by his American flag, saluting John as he traveled to his final resting place.” People came out to wave flags and show their respect all along the route to the cemetery. As mourners watched the Air Force Honor Guard slowly bring John’s casket graveside, a missing-man formation flyover by Air Force A-10 Thunderbolts roared overhead. Valerie sat solemnly in the front row, flanked by Madison and Brianna, as Colonel Rodriguez presented her, in honor of John’s sacrifice, with the tightly folded flag that had covered her husband’s casket. Gene and Terry sat sobbing as they each accepted the flags he presented, listening to him thank them for their sacrifice. They were officially part of a club no one wants to join and from which there is no escape.
As family and friends passed John’s casket for their final farewell, some placed flowers, some placed coins. Terry kissed the casket before turning away. Gene held his hand on top as he silently said goodbye. A handful of John’s CCT brothers lingered at his side one last time, not wanting to leave. Those tough, hardened warriors hugged and cried before leaving coins and a beret pin on the casket lid, leaning on each other as they turned away.
John is buried only twenty miles from Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Shanksville is the tragic resting place of United Flight 93, the fourth and “missing” plane on 9/11, the day that brought the call for John and his brothers to fight terror in Afghanistan, the beginning of the end for John. Before leaving Windber, Gene spoke with Valerie’s father, Jim, about John’s gravesite. Jim, who loved John like his own, lives a short walk down the hill from Saint Mary’s Cemetery, and he promised Gene that he would take care of John’s plot. To this day, he takes his daily walk to the cemetery where he tends John’s grave. Anyone searching for it need only look for the greenest and best-kept site, thanks to Jim Novak and a promise between two dads.
The trip back to Connecticut proved therapeutic and productive for John’s three friends, Brian, David, and Michael. Since they had decided on the way to Windber that the funeral couldn’t be the end of it for John, they used the trip home to brainstorm about what to do. Determined to keep John’s memory from fading into yesterday’s news, David recalls, “We tossed around so many ideas—renaming the airport or a street or a stretch of highway—we were all over the place. Then we finally settled on where John’s memorial should be, and that led us in the direction of what it should be. It was most fitting to be at Windsor Locks High School, by the soccer field where we had all played.” Brian adds, “We thought that keeping the memorial in town was the most meaningful, but we also thought, since Chappy wasn’t buried in Windsor Locks, or even close by, we wanted a place for people to go and remember him. And we did it for his mom too.”
In the end, they accomplished in only seven balls-to-the-wall months what seasoned organizers couldn’t do in a year. David remembers with pride, “For a bunch of unorganized guys, it impressed me what we could do, what a group of people can do—grass roots—when we put the effort together.” Brian added, “When you have people that have a common bond, such strong feelings for John, you get it done no matter what. I put more work into that, at that time, than I did at my job!” David agreed: “Yup, me too. And I was new to my job!” Michael nodded in agreement as Brian said, “If we weren’t working our jobs, we were working on the memorial.” Michael quipped, “It almost cost us our jobs and our marriages!” though the latter part was just to emphasize how much time the men put into the memorial. In reality, their wives were totally supportive, because they knew what this project meant—what John meant—to their husbands.
John’s memorial was dedicated on 19 October 2002—ironically, the same date as the first ground deployments of Operation Enduring Freedom the previous year. It sits at the corner of the soccer field at Windsor Locks High, beside a grove of hardwood trees. The design is simple—a thirty-foot-tall flagpole topped with a golden eagle that roosts high above a large boulder. On the boulder is a bronze plaque that reads:
IN MEMORY OF
John A. Chapman
“Chappy”
WLHS Class of 1983
You Will Never Be Forgotten
Fellow Student, Dedicated Athlete, Loyal Friend, Committed Family Man, True Patriot
Members of the 24 came, including Kenny Longfritz and another support teammate, Master Sergeant Mike Rizzuto. Kicking off the ceremony, Rizzuto slowly raised the American flag as Longfritz unfurled it from its triangle. Standing next to the flagpole, hands over their hearts, were John’s childhood friends, their upward gaze locked on the flag as it rose over their heads. Their dream, their blood, sweat, and tears, their tribute to John, had come to glorious fruition. As the flag met the golden eagle and the last notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” faded, Brian Topor stepped to the podium to dedicate the memorial. “Those who never met John will only know him as an American hero. But in school, he was ‘Chappy,’ a fellow classmate, a student, a teammate, and a friend. He had a wonderful zest for life and a firm commitment to teamwork.” In dedicating the memorial, Brian stated, “Having this here is fitting, so people can come to talk, laugh, or cry out loud. Without individuals like John, we would not be able to sleep peacefully at night.”
In a moving tribute, childhood and high school friend Bill Brooks credited John for changing the course of his life with unconditional friendship and encouragement. “I was a painfully shy kid, even throughout most of high school. I couldn’t talk to anyone.” Over time, John coaxed Bill into believing in himself, so much so that he went on to be a chef who travels the world, speaking to large groups. “I don’t know if he even knew he was helping me all those years ago, but he helped me get to where I am now. After high school, we kind of went in and out of each other’s lives, but the times that he came back into my life are the times that I needed him there. I can’t imagine how my life would have been without John in it.”
Colonel Ken Rodriguez then took the podium to offer his tribute to John, closing with, “This is what it’s all about, this great American town. This is what John was fighting for.” The ceremony ended with a lone bagpiper, Pipe Major Patrick Whelan of the Connecticut State Police Pipes and Drums Unit, standing behind the memorial, his pipes echoing “Amazing Grace” over the fields.
At that point in 2002, the Chapman family didn’t know the truth of what happened on Takur Ghar, but each one of them had a sixth sense that there was much more to the story than they had been told. The Navy had immediately added John’s name, the only non-SEAL, to their Wall of Honor in Virginia Beach. Why, the family wondered, would they do that if he’d merely played a minor role on the mission? And why were there debates within the Air Force as to the level of medal they would award him? Air Force Cross? Medal of Honor? Ultimately, he was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross on 10 January 2003, but the debate over the award level created more questions for the family.
* * *
Time passed, and though John’s family continued to mull over trickles of new information, life pushed them forward. In early 2005, they received word that the Navy was going to rename a ship after John. The MV Merlin, a 670-foot cargo container and roll-on/roll-off ship, owned by Sealift Inc. and leased by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, was renamed MV TSgt John A. Chapman in a sunny ceremony on 8 April 2005 at the Military Ocean Terminal, Sunny Point, North Carolina. It was fitting that the ship—a munitions vessel—would be named for John, a Combat Controller whose profession, among all the elite of special operations, relied on those munitions to change the course of battles and lives.
The publication of this book will be the latest in a long line of honors bestowed upon John and his legacy. On 14 June 2006, during the sixtieth anniversary celebration at Lackland AFB honoring enlisted heroes, Terry attended the unveiling of the Chapman Training Complex, home of the 326th Training Squadron. Many more honors have come, including a nephew namesake (John Chapman Longfritz), multiple renamings of streets, an FOB (forward operating base), and a score of tattoos. John’s three childhood friends were right…The funeral wasn’t “it” for him, his name, and his legacy.