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This episode of America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson honors the remarkable heroism of John Chapman, an American patriot who gave his life in Afghanistan for his fellow soldiers. Through emotional family interviews with Lori Longfritz and expert commentary from Rob Harrison, listeners will navigate through the complexities and controversies surrounding the operation that changed lives forever. The discussion raises important questions about truth, valor, and the legacy left behind by those who defend our freedoms at all costs.
SPEAKER 01 :
world war ii korea vietnam the gulf war afghanistan and her other wars and conflicts america’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty we must never forget them Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied four D-Day veterans back to Normandy, France, for the 72nd anniversary of the World War II D-Day landings. and return stateside realizing we need to know the stories of our veterans and of our military, and we need to record them and broadcast them and archive them, so hence America’s Veterans Stories. And I’m really pleased to have on the line with me Lori Longfritz, and she is the sister of John Chapman. And John Chapman was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for actions that he took on a mountaintop in Afghanistan in 2002. So, Lori, welcome to the show. Hi, Kim. Thank you for having me. And also on the line with us is retired Chief Master Sergeant from the Air Force, Rob Harris. And, Rob, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you, Kim. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, and Lori, we actually had recorded a show about your brother that broadcast initially, I think, back in 2021. And there’s been some new things that have occurred regarding his Medal of Honor. There’s a new Medal of Honor museum that is either closed. just about to open or is open. So bring us up to speed on that. But first of all, let’s talk about your brother, John Chapman. And these were actions that were taken in 2002 on a mountaintop in Afghanistan. So tell us what happened, Lori Longfritz.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I guess the short story is he was attached to a SEAL Team 16. At this juncture, I would say he drew the short straw when he was assigned to that particular team because the mission that they were sent on or that the team leader – and I also use that term very loosely – agreed to do. Other team leaders, at least one other, had said, no, we’re not taking that mission. But this one, Slavinsky, decided, yeah, sure, let’s do this.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, why did some of the other leaders not take that mission?
SPEAKER 11 :
Because they knew it wasn’t a good mission, it was stupid, and it was dangerous, what they were trying to do. So, yeah, people with, I guess, more of a backbone just said, no, I’m not doing it. And to his credit, Swabinski did try to push it 24 hours, but failed. But once the command in Bagram said, no, you have to keep going, he said, okay, fine.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
So Jabba’s attached. He was an Air Force combat controller attached to the SEAL Team 16. They went to – the different things happened. They were supposed to, you know, offset and kind of climb up and – and get on the top of the mountain. And Rob, correct me if I’m saying any of this wrong, but he, they, oh, I lost my train of thought now.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, so the mission was initially wanted to push it 24 hours, but ended up they were going to drop these guys on the top of this mountain, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. Yeah, they ran into some mechanical issues, so they lost some time, they lost some night, you know, some undercover darkness time, and they still decided to just, well, how about we just drop on the top of the mountain, which I’m not even military, and I know that’s not even the right thing to do, especially since they did have intel that there were bad people up there. So, yeah, so when they went to land, they took a RPG fire and machine gun fire and hit the helicopter. And at that point, Navy SEAL Neil Roberts fell out of the back. There was a whole incident with that, but I’m not going to get into that. So he fell out, but the pilots didn’t know. They crash landed, I don’t know, maybe seven kilometers away at the base of another mountain. Then there was more time. We’re trying to get another helicopter calling in to be rescued from there. And once they returned to the top of the mountain to retrieve Roberts, that’s when, of course, their helicopter was hit again. And this one landed and Slavinsky got out first. John was right behind him. And Slavinsky fell in the snow. So John stepped over him and kept going, attacked the attackers. He went to the first gun nest and took out the two fighters in there and then started heading towards the second bunker. They call them the bunkers. I think that Slavinsky was following in his footsteps in the snow, which is, from what I understand, not how you’re supposed to… act when you’re attacking the attackers, but you’re not supposed to follow in a line. You’re supposed to spread out, but, um, There were lots of things that he was supposed to do that he didn’t do or he claimed to do that he didn’t do.
SPEAKER 10 :
And this is going to there is controversy that we’re going to be getting into. And so I will, Laurie, I thought I probably should make an effort to reach out to Slabinski and offer for him to be able to tell his side of the story. So I will make that offer to him, Laurie. But I’ve read this piece that was published. Let’s see. I had it right here in front of me just a moment ago. And that was from the Air and Space Forces by Sean. Let’s see, Sean Naylor. And that’s super informative regarding what was going on at that time. So, Rob Harrison, let’s have you jump in. Tell us how you’re involved in what was going what was happening that day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. So I ended up being a crew member on call sign Grim 32, which was an AC-130 Spectre. It’s a gunship, a C-130 transport plane outfitted with sensors and artillery cannons. And we provide close air support for ground forces, specifically our primary customer tends to be special operations customers. So that particular night, this is night two of Operation Anaconda, which was a combined conventional and special operations effort. It was the spring offensive in 2002. So after the towers fell in New York in 9-11 in 2001, We immediately deployed to Afghanistan, took the fight to the enemy, tried to annihilate anything that was al-Qaeda over in Afghanistan that had been harboring those terrorists. As the winter onset and the fight had gone on, the fighting kind of dies down a little bit because of the weather and so on. The enemy ends up retreating into particular strongholds in mountainous regions. In this area, the closest main area is a city called Gerdes. They’re in the Chiayi Cote Valley, and Operation Anaconda is going to take place there with a mixture of conventional and special operations. So on night two, I find myself in the situation being crew member on Grim 32. We’re an emergency on-call close air support platform. And when the initial insertion was attempted in their aircraft, which was callsign Razor 03 and MH47 by the Army’s Special Operations Aviation Regiment, It got hit with the gunfire and RPG that Laurie was talking about and it crash landed in the valley just north of the original infiltration site. So at that point, Laurie’s brother John is the combat controller on the SEAL team that is on board that helicopter. And John comes up on the radio as Mako 30 Charlie. That suffix is specific to him as a controller with the team. Anyway, he calls any grim, any nail, which were call signs for the gunships. Mayday, mayday, mayday, any grim, any male, this is Mako 3-0 Charlie. And we established radio comms with him, found out his location and what the situation was, and immediately made a beeline for their position.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, and Lori, just for people, civilians that don’t know what a combat controller is, what does he do exactly?
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, my gosh. What don’t they do? They have the longest and most rigorous training pipeline of all of the special tactics community because they embed or get attached to Delta or SEAL teams or even, you know, Australian Special Forces, so they need to be able to hang with all of them. I guess you’d say their main job, if you will, is calling in airstrikes, but there’s so much more to them than that.
SPEAKER 10 :
With John growing up, his sister, what was special about him as a little boy? What do you think? How did he end up being a combat controller?
SPEAKER 11 :
He always liked to test himself and those around him, but he was always pushing himself and looking for, you know, to better, what can I do better? How can I do this better? If he failed, and I rarely saw him fail, I know that’s unbelievable, but I very rarely saw him fail. And if he did, or when he did… He would, if he really cared about it, he would do whatever he could to overcome that failure. And yeah, when he joined the Air Force, my mom asked him to at least try something safe. So for about a couple of years, he was sat behind a computer and he was miserable. And he decided, you know what, I tried. I fulfilled my promise to mom and now I’m going to go for combat control. Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
So what about family? When he went to Afghanistan, obviously your sister, but did he leave other family behind as well?
SPEAKER 11 :
Oh, yeah. My mom, my dad, my brother, and my other sister, or my sister. He also has a wife and two little girls. They were three and five at the time he died. They’re almost four and six.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wow. OK, so he’s on a on a mountain in Afghanistan and it’s a mission then that’s gone gone wrong or not gone well. Right. Rob Harrison.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so when you asked Lori earlier about what it was that other people had denied that particular mission, the observation posts had been infiltrated to the area days in advance. And so if you’re going to put a reconnaissance team or an observation post team in, you typically infill them to an area away from the place where from which you want them to observe. That way they can be sneaky and stealthy in getting to that position. That way the enemy doesn’t know where they’re hiding. Well, this particular mission, they were trying to force this particular observation post team, the SEAL team, into a plan that they weren’t originally part of. I think it’s arguable whether or not they were needed to be there. Most people that were part of the original plan would tell you it was unnecessary. They didn’t need to be there. I think that there were some overzealous leaders on the SEAL team, specifically the executive officer who went on to become a vice admiral. His name is Tim Zemanski. He’s the XO who’s basically twisting the arm of Britt Slabinski, the team leader. And when you think about the Seals, the Seals are designed that… their senior enlisted are the most tactically experienced. They’re the ones that should make the operational and tactical decisions when it comes to how they employ and so on. So when Britt was actually trying to delay everything, he was trying to delay it because tactically it didn’t make sense. You don’t infill directly to your observation point and you don’t do it so quickly to the point in which you are trying to be operationally in place. So again, everybody else did it days in advance. He was, his hand was being forced. And so when he tried to delay, he tried to delay and say, Hey, I’ll infill here and then give me 24 hours to get into position. Well, his organization, orders, which very seldom does he actually talk about this. He’s very evasive when you see the questions that’ll come to, well, why’d you do it? He said, well, sometimes I need to be a good follower, and my orders were, and things changed, and things happened. Well, what happened was Tim Zemanski told him, expletive, you’re a blank frogman, and you will be in place by sunrise. And so that forced that situation. Rather than this team leader say, no, this does not make sense, which is what he should have done, he did not. And the mission went on. And ultimately, it just results in a mess. We lost three helicopters and seven servicemen as a result of this operation. Wow.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, well, we’re going to continue this discussion. I’m talking with Lori Longfritz, and she is the sister of John Chapman, Medal of Honor recipient, and then retired Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force, Rob Harrison. We will be right back.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
All of Kim’s sponsors are an inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Munson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmunson.com. That’s kimmunson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And the show comes to you because of great sponsors. One of those is Hooters Restaurants. And they have five locations, Loveland, Aurora, Lone Tree, Westminster, and Colorado Springs, and great specials Monday through Friday for lunch and for dinner. Great place to get together with friends to watch the sporting events and how I got to know them. It’s a really important story from when I was on city council. And it’s a story about proper role of government and I call them PBIs, politicians, bureaucrats, and interested parties, and how all that matched up. And so you can find that story at KimMunson.com. Talking with Lori Longfritz, she is the sister of Medal of Honor recipient John Chapman and also retired Chief Master Sergeant from the Air Force Rob Harrison. And, Rob, when we went to break, we were talking about what happened on that mission. We lost three helicopters, and we lost seven souls on that mission. So now how are you playing into this with what is happening on that mountaintop now? Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. So when John comes up on the radio as Mako 30 Charlie, he’s looking for anyone to respond to the emergency that’s unfolding, and that is their initial infill helicopter crashing in the valley floor. So he requested gunship coverage. We immediately fly and establish an orbit overhead. While we’re on the radio with him, he tells us about their teammate, Petty Officer Neil Roberts. They called him Fifi. He’s the SEAL team member who had fallen out of the helicopter on top of Tucker Garr. So he tells us about that, asks us to slide our orbit from overhead, his downed helicopter, over to the top of the mountain. So immediately, they’re adjacent to one another. It’s a pretty easy maneuver from an aircraft standpoint. So we take our sensors, we slew to the position that he gives us for Roberts, and adjust the orbit. Meanwhile, our sister ship, a different AC-130 Spectre gunship, comes in and establishes the orbit over the downed helicopter. While we’re there, we’re giving them an update on Roberts. We can see him on top of the mountain. He’s not moving. His strobe is active, so he has an emergency infrared strobe that’s visible by our sensors. and then all of a sudden the enemy just comes out of the woodwork and surrounds him. And so we don’t know his status. We don’t know if he’s dead or alive. We’re assuming that he’s alive, and that is the information that’s essentially going to kick off what would be a hasty rescue mission because now the team knows that they’ve got a teammate up on top of this mountain, and they need to get back up there and get him. Otherwise, he’s severely outnumbered and outgunned. So we’re on the radio with John as Mako 30 Charlie. We facilitate the pickup of the air crew and their assault team by their sister ship helicopter, Razor 04. I think it’s interesting because nowadays when you look at interviews with Brett Slavinsky, he says that he’s the one who rescued the air crew, and that is flat out not true. It’s one of the opening lines in his citation that he marshaled the forces to recover those air crew. The fact of the matter is that John Chapman marshaled those forces because he’s the controller responsible for getting air support. Our aircraft was what you call the unseen commander. So we’re the initial responding aircraft. So we’re the ones who coordinate any and all efforts at the request of John Chapman. And then we coordinate RZA-04, who actually rescues the crew and the team. So it’s just it’s kind of funny how a narrative gets spun. But Britt Sabinsky did not rescue that crew. John Chapman did it via Grim 32 and Razor 04.
SPEAKER 10 :
So did you see that with your own eyes or how do you know that this narrative that’s been pushed?
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, like I was an eyewitness. I was literally on the aircraft. I witnessed all of this happen. I was part of the coordination of getting Razor Zero 4. I could regurgitate to you what happened on the radio that night. But better than just hear it from me, there’s multiple interviews from Alan Mack, who was the pilot of Razor Zero 3, the guy that crashed. And he tells it not only in his book, Razor Zero Three, but I’ve watched multiple interviews where he recounts exactly how that rescue unfolded. That John Chapman, the controller, got a hold of the gunship who got a hold of Razor Zero Four. And my sister ship came and picked us up.
SPEAKER 10 :
OK, so, Laurie, there then ends up. This controversy regarding, well, obviously what happened there. And then the Medal of Honor is awarded. There has to be eyewitnesses to the actions. And I think it has to be Americans, if I remember right. Is that correct? Yes.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t know the specifics of that. Um, I do know that initially John was awarded the air force cross and they had only, I don’t know why there were only three eyewitness accounts, three from three of the team. There were more than three. Um, but they gave their accounts and he was awarded the air force cross in 2003. And then for the upgrade, um, they were, they were asked to sign their original statements because it was done electronically, so they didn’t sign them. And at that point in time, they refused to sign them. Yeah, I don’t… I don’t know if a foreigner can say, hey, yeah, I saw this happen, and it counts.
SPEAKER 10 :
And I think I’m just doing that from memory. I think it’s just a moot point, so not a problem. So that’s interesting they didn’t sign that. But what is also very interesting is there was a Predator drone camera footage, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, they didn’t count on that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, so explain what happens, or Rob, do you want to take this?
SPEAKER 03 :
If I can add, so what’s interesting about the Predator drone footage is just within minutes, minutes of us landing. I know from a gunship standpoint, we had an individual meet us at the aircraft and said, give me the tapes. And typically, you know, that’s not abnormal because when you have a mission of that magnitude where loss of life happens, immediately people want to triage the video and go through and get whatever critical data points are necessary. Well, in this case, within a day or two of the mission, The SEALs actually sent two guys up in civilian clothes to our deployed location in Uzbekistan, and they confiscated the tapes. And so what’s really significant here is that the data had already been transmitted back stateside to the Department of Defense. And conveniently for us, that data existed in a number—I’m talking in the thousands—of small segments on the server. Well, they confiscated the videos, and those videos went under lock and key, so for years we didn’t have access to it. Well, lo and behold, the data wasn’t ever completely erased off those servers, and it existed historically under lock and key for years, like about 15 years before it actually started getting looked at based on the guidance from the Department of Defense. But yes, so there was predator video, there was gunship video. Those things had been confiscated by the SEALs who literally directed this mission to occur. And I think that they did that in order to cover everything up.
SPEAKER 10 :
So they confiscated the footage from the C-130, but did they also confiscate it from the predator drone as well?
SPEAKER 03 :
I think that’s a safe assumption. I don’t know directly. I know they confiscated the video footage from the from the gunship. There was recordings at our location of the predator footage because a lot of the ground command and control elements had access to that footage. They were watching it in Bagram, they were watching it in Tampa, they were watching it in Virginia, they were watching it in Uzbekistan, and they were even watching it from the safe house according to various accounts over the years. So I think they tried to essentially get whatever copies they needed, whatever was loosely floating out there.
SPEAKER 10 :
So this would be new then, relatively new, because this is 2002. And I hadn’t really thought about this, Rob, but that would have been right after – 9-11 within just a short period of time i hadn’t really connected that particular dot but was is this kind of one of the first times that we ever saw combat where you had it being watched in different locations like this
SPEAKER 03 :
I’d say it is more the first time that it was proliferated as much as this. But if you think back to predators and drone footage, I think that stuff goes back to the mid to late 90s. And we would have seen that in areas around Bosnia and Serbia.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Interesting. So let’s finish up what happened on that mountain. So Lori, tell us what happened with John then, and then we’ll also have Rob give his account of it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, at one point when the Slavinsky did catch up to John at the second bunker and John had been shot, he went down and, um, And Slavinsky afterwards said he checked him. He kept changing his story, how he checked him. He never did. The drone footage shows that he never did. It was suggested at that point in time, once they were proven lies or incorrect evidence. memories um that they uh they put out there that well perhaps they he thought that neil roberts’s body was john um because he came closer to roberts than he did to john um but neil roberts i don’t want to get into detail but he was uh The enemy had time with him, and there’s no way at all, I don’t care how dark it was or how many bullets were flying over your head, there’s absolutely no way anyone could mistake Neil Roberts at that point in time for John. So they left. They decided, and again, I’m not taking anything away from what they were going through at the time they were getting shot at.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, there’s a lot of chaos going on.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, everybody except Slav, which was interesting to me. Every single one of them had gotten wounded in some way, and that’s when Slavinsky decided to retreat from the mountain.
SPEAKER 10 :
After they retreated… And you could see with a lot of chaos, confusion, things not, you know, so much going on, guys getting wounded, it would be a difficult situation, right, Lori? Yeah.
SPEAKER 11 :
Absolutely. And I try to give them grace for what happened on the mountain. I wasn’t there. There’s a whole lot of crap going on. Mostly what I can hold them accountable for is the lies that started the moment. They got to the bottom of the mountain.
SPEAKER 10 :
So that’s that’s the thing that you’re that we’re going to talk about a bit more here in these next segments. And Rob, before we finish this segment, anything else you want to add to what Laurie said regarding? And so, well, we didn’t you didn’t finish the story. So John is wounded. And well, and then they retreat and he ultimately then is killed on the top of that mountain. Right, Laurie?
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, no, there’s a lot more that happened after they retreated. Um, he came to somehow, but I don’t know. Um, I think Rob was thinking that some of the, uh, the, the tonnage of the ordinance that they were dropping, uh, may have awakened him, but, uh, he got up and fought for another, I think hour and 15 minutes, 20 minutes by himself, um, a hand to hand, um, shooting, whatever he could. And, uh, Yeah, he actually gave his, he was, I believe they say about, he could hear the QRF coming in because Slavinsky had called for a quick reaction force to come in and rescue them. And they were laying on top of the mountain again. And so John was about, I think if the timing is right, He had about a minute where he actually probably saw the helicopter before he was killed, but he had to lay down, chose to lay down suppressive fire to protect that helicopter from suffering the same fate that the other two had. And that’s when he gave his life for the other, the QRF guys.
SPEAKER 10 :
I just got chills on that. Okay, you know what? Let’s go to break because we’re about out of time on this. Then, Rob, I want you to weigh in on this. I’m talking with Rob Harrison and Lori Longfritz, and we will be right back.
SPEAKER 09 :
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SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. We’re talking with Lori Longfritz. She is the sister of John Chapman, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. And Rob Harrison, retired Chief Master Sergeant from the Air Force. He was on an AC-130 plane. On March 4th, 2002, was over this mountaintop in Afghanistan. So Rob, walk us through this. As we went to break, John Chapman had been shot. He was wounded. Maybe he had been unconscious. He possibly came back to obviously came to if he’d been unconscious. And he said that he was on the top of that mountain for an hour and 15 minutes shooting at the enemy hand to hand combat. So walk us through what was going on on the top of the mountain at that time. Sure.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s if you’ll. Humor me for a moment. I want to go back to the initial infill, because if you recall, I referenced Britt Slavitsky’s Medal of Honor citation and was telling you how the first key point in there was him claiming to have marshaled the rescue forces to recover the air crew and themselves. So I tell you, that is a lie. That is not true. And I witnessed what actually happened in Alan Mack. has put it in his book, and he has done a number of interviews, and he was the pilot of that helicopter. So he’s intimately familiar with how that went down. The next key statement in Britt Slabinski’s citation actually covers the initial actions once the team infills. So Laurie mentioned that slab had fallen in the deep snow. Well, John leapfrogged slab at that point, and that’s what put John on point. They’re in a side deep snow. It’s about a 17 to 18 degree incline. And that initial bunker that is the biggest threat that the team is being shot at almost immediately from three different directions. That initial bunker is about 275 feet up this mountain in thigh-deep snow. And once they first gather behind where they had exited the helicopter, John is partially up the hill, and the rest of the SEAL team is in what they call a wagon wheel formation. And just as they’re all conversing and trying to figure out a plan, gunfire erupts from all around them. Primarily, the biggest threat is that first bunker. John immediately rushes to the site of the ambush, which is an understood tactic for them to execute. The SEAL team then breaks into two-man firing teams, and two of them go to the left of a big boulder up the mountain lateral to John. Two of them remain about where they are, and they’re focused down the slope. And then Slab himself is joining John to assault Bunker One.
SPEAKER 10 :
And who is Slab again?
SPEAKER 03 :
Slab is the team leader, Britt Slabinski. Oh, okay. So he’s the other Medal of Honor recipient from this event and where this controversy centers. So John is on point. John is going like full throttle towards the threat. He empties a couple of magazines, putting down fire against this bunker as he’s going up the incline. Eventually, he makes it all the way up to the entry of the bunker, and he’s off to the left of it. He kills the two occupants within it at point-blank range. enters the bunker, and comes out on the right-hand side. Well, while this is going on, Slabinski is following directly behind John, and he gets no closer than about 15 feet or so. And while he’s going up, what’s interesting is we don’t observe any rounds being fired by Slabinski until he gets point blank at the entry point of the bunker that John has already cleared and killed the two occupants. Well, that’s when SLAB fires confirmatory rounds into the dead enemy that are in the bunker. So that’s the… That’s the extent to which he co-assaulted this bunker. And that is another key entry in a citation. So John assaulted that bunker. Slab followed him. John killed the occupants. Slab was along for the ride. So it’s just not true. And this is all confirmed by the ISR footage, both from the gunship and from the Predator. From there, there’s actually an accurate statement in Slab’s citation. And this is where Slab is on the left of that bunker and John is now on the right. And now we’re at the point where where Lori had referenced that that John got hit. Well, they’re both assaulting now the biggest threat, which is bunker two behind bunker one and up the slope. It’s well, well protected. Both men are firing on it, and this is where John gets hit, and John is rendered unconscious. The medical exam says that’s a mortal wound that John suffers, but he did not die from this, and we know this based on the pathological forensic medical examination that was done after the fact. So Slab and John were engaged in Bunker 2. John is taken out of the fight at this moment. Slab tries to use his rifle, grenades, all kinds of stuff to go after Bunker 2. Well, it’s not working. So he retreats back behind from his… His closer cover to bunker two, back behind the big boulder, comes up with a plan. That’s when his machine gunner climbs up on top of the big boulder, and he gets hit by an enemy grenade. And now the casualties, with John being down, another team member being injured by the grenade, that’s when the tactical decision to reposition is made. So the team pops smoke. This is where, by Slab’s account, he says that he crawled right over John. And this is interesting because his first account is that he looked at John and could see a laser from John’s weapon, and he was watching the rise and fall. And then he didn’t see the rise and fall, and he thought John was dead. But that was in a—I want to say it’s a New York Times article where he says that.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well— And just to clarify that, the rifle was on John’s chest, so you would see the rifle go up and down if he was breathing. Is that right? That’s what he’s claiming, yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
But when we did all of the imagery analysis, the premier agency in our government that does imagery analysis mapped that mountaintop down to just the most specific of detail. At any point in time, you could drop a pinpoint on the map and you could show what the point of view was from that position. So combine that with all the imagery of the actual full motion video footage of the team, we knew exactly where they were and we could drop a pin and say, okay, if they’re laying down, kneeling, standing, whatever, we could show you exactly what their perspective was. Well, the point where Slab says that he could see the laser, he’s actually terrain masked, and you can’t see John from that position. Where he is behind the rock, and he says that he could see it, you wouldn’t have been able to see it at all because now you’re obscured completely. If… And later in 2016, when we presented all of this evidence to the team, this is when Slab actually changed his story, and he says that he crawled right over the top of John. Well, he never crawled right over the top of John. We have the footage. The closest person that he crawled over the top of was Robert’s. And the team all stated that they never saw Roberts. They were literally right next to him. And so what’s interesting about this is that the team claimed to never have seen Roberts because they knew the footage existed and people were watching this fight unfold in real time. So when we say that John was up there fighting for an hour and 20 minutes by himself, the Navy thought that that was Roberts. They wanted that to be Roberts. So the statements from the SEALs coming off the objective was they never saw Roberts, and that gave them an inkling of hope that it was Roberts that was up there fighting by himself. Well, all this time, it was Chapman, and we know this now verifiably by all of that evidence. So when they say that they crawled right over John, the closest thing they could have crawled over was Roberts. They absolutely did not crawl over John, and they were terrain masked from John, meaning they could not visibly see his body from their position as they were breaking contact.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And when you mentioned then Pop’s smoke, again, as a civilian, I guess that this is probably a message to come get us, yes? Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So in this case, they threw a smoke grenade. The sun’s coming up. It’s partially daylight at this point. We’re still orbiting in the gunship, and we have not established two-way comms with them so that we could give them supporting fires against those enemy positions. Plus, they were what we call danger close hitters. they were too close proximity to the enemy for us to safely fire our weapons on the enemy positions, despite not being in comms at all. So when I say pop smoke, They’ve taken a couple of casualties. They threw a smoke grenade to mask their movement off the mountaintop. They wanted to break contact, go down the slope a little bit, put terrain between them and the enemy, and to find some element of safety. So we watch all of that unfold. The whole team leaves the top of the mountain, minus Roberts, who is actually dead at this point, and then Chapman, who’s incapacitated with a mortal wound. once they break contact over the edge of the mountain, they’re finally able to come up and establish radio comms. And that’s when we start shooting on top of the mountain. That’s what wakes up Chapman. And he’s a seasoned combat controller artillery rounds that are 105 millimeter. They’re big, big artillery rounds. They’re going off close to his position. That’s one heck of an alarm clock. Um, in our footage, You see a strobe illuminate and a guy getting into the bunker, and we are totally confused. Don’t know exactly what’s going on because what we’re hearing on the radio doesn’t match what we’re seeing. Because now SLAB is on the radio telling us that they’ve got a possible KIA and that they need fire on top of the mountain now. Well, we assume that the possible KIA is Robert’s. We didn’t realize that Chapman wasn’t with him because he was partially obscured by a tree during their initial retreat. Well, once we start putting fires down, we have two different sensors, and one of them is looking at the friendly position and one is engaging the enemy. And the guy who’s keeping tabs on the friendlies is moving back and forth from the friendly position to where the rounds are impacting. And when he does that, Chris, the TV sensor operator, sees the second strobe and says, hey, I’ve got another strobe up here. And that’s our first indication that someone else is alive on top of the mountain.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, so next question. If you’re a C-130, that’s an airplane, so you would be circling around. Were you actually able to see what’s going on, or is it because of the camera footage, or what did that look like, Rob Harrison?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, so I’m in the booth of a gunship. I’m sitting in between the two primary sensor operators. One is an infrared with a heat picture, and the other one is an all-light level TV, like a night vision goggle. So it’s magnifying ambient light. So combined, those two pictures are the visual that we get. The rest is the sensor aspect from the radios, being able to hear what’s going on, talking to the team, and so on. So when I say I see it, I see it from the booth looking at the screens that are the sensor camera footages.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, got it. So then what happens now that you’ve said, oh, my gosh, there’s somebody else up there? So what happens?
SPEAKER 03 :
This is when our friend Murphy pops his head up. So anything that can go wrong will. Before we ever even communicate specifically with the team about that second strobe, we’re talking about it internally. We never tell them that, hey, there’s another strobe active. The team starts taking incoming mortar fire, and then the enemy has repositioned, and now they’re trying to shoot rifles at them as well. So we immediately… Mark that point where we saw that second strobe, that person had crawled back into the bunker. That person is John Chapman. We know this after the fact with hindsight of all the analysis that went into it. But Chapman is now in bunker one. We’ve marked that position as potentially friendly, just as we know exactly where Roberts is at this point. So we are deconflicting our rounds as they’re impacting the ground from the friendly position. Meanwhile, we’re protecting the main element, Mako, from the incoming mortar and the rifle fire. So we never even get a chance to really talk to them about seeing that second strobe because it was on to the next closest alligator to the boat.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. So let’s finish this up, what happened on that mountaintop, and then we’ll come back and talk about this concern regarding what’s happening with the— National Medal of Honor Museum. So what else happened then? Finish this up for us.
SPEAKER 03 :
That team breaks contact. They continue to move a little bit further away from the mountaintop because they’ve got severely injured teammates. We are putting down covering fire. The background of what else is going on is the sun’s coming up. Gunships aren’t supposed to fly during daylight. We’re ignoring that rule because we know that there’s a team in trouble that needs us. And our higher headquarters is really upset with our decision. So they’re fussing at us on the radios. We had shut them off. We ended up getting fussed at for all this kind of stuff. But we were trying to do the right thing for the team that was in trouble. So ultimately, we’re ordered off station. We try to facilitate a handoff with the next available assets, which is a two-ship of F-15E Strike Eagles. They come in, we relay all the pertinent data to them, and they are going to cover the Mako element and the top of the mountain until the QRF gets there, the quick reaction force. That is the main element. They’re split. It’s an element of rangers. They’re split between Razor 01 and Razor 02, the two helicopters that are going to bring them in. And then all of that stuff gets messed up because the QRF comes back to the top of the mountain. We’ve departed at this point, so they don’t have the luxury of a gunship coverage. And you’ve got the fast movers, the fighter aircraft that are trying to do the close air support, and the Predator is watching overhead. But it never gets communicated that, hey, the LZ is still hot, the landing zone, and the QRF lands right in the fray. Well, that’s when John exposed himself, brought himself out of cover, and laid down the covering fire, ultimately sacrificing his life to protect that helicopter when the QRF comes in. That begins a 17-hour battle with the rangers to secure the mountain, and the SEAL element makes their way down the mountain with their injured folks, and ultimately everybody stays in the field until the next period of darkness when it’s safe for helicopters to come and recover them.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. And John dies then as he gets out of cover and gets out of the bunker and does the covering fire.
SPEAKER 03 :
He was laying down at an angle, putting covering fire downslope, and an enemy from that bunker two position behind him shot him at that point. The shot that took John’s life, we know exactly where it entered his body and where it impacted in his upper left shoulder. And the angle of all of that matched the down slope and the prone position John was laying in and the origin source of the rifle fire. And it actually took off the top of the aorta. And that’s what helped put everything into a chronological sense as far as his wounds. because you knew that at that point he lost all blood pressure and any other bruising or anything else that the doctors could have ascertained of the wounds on his body, it ends at that point and that’s when his body actually starts to cool as well. So not only did you have the medical aspect, but you had the heat signature and it was verified on the camera and so on. Okay, got it. There’s a totality of information. It is absolutely airtight what John Chapman did. Okay. It’s unbelievable.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay, well, let’s go to break. We’re going to come back and continue this discussion with Rob Harrison and Lori Longfritz.
SPEAKER 07 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
From the mountains to the prairies.
SPEAKER 10 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. We are listening to a riveting story of John Chapman and who gave his life to give cover to a, I guess it was a helicopter that was going to try to get some guys off of a mountain up in Afghanistan. Do I have that right, Rob Harrison?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, ma’am.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Lori Longfritz is John’s sister, and she’s very concerned about some developments that have happened. So, Lori, let’s walk through this.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, let’s run through it. I would say the short story is they were creating the Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas. I went there with a friend from John’s unit, the 724 unit, to tour it while it was being built. They showed us where John’s exhibit would be. And we offered to them artifacts from the family from the unit we left that was in February of 24 and we left and never heard from them again basically I received intelligence intelligence from in a November from someone who said hey when you were at the museum you were misled and that was came from someone within the museum and Once I investigated it, I asked them directly, and I said, well, what do you mean? They said they were going to diminish John and prop up Slavinski. And I said, there’s no way they would do that. There’s so much proof out there of what happened. But when I addressed this with the museum people, they said, yes, Slavinski will have an exhibit, and John will not. So what rankled me on that one is, number one, Slavinsky’s on the board. He’s a Navy SEAL who’s the president and CEO. There are other Navy SEALs on the board. You know, and if Slavinsky had an exhibit, I had no problem when I went there to see it. Like, okay, John’s going to have an exhibit. Slavinsky’s going to have an exhibit. My only concern at that point in time was, are they going to be side by side? Because I just, I just, I didn’t want that. It wasn’t my call. But so I asked the question and they said, no, they’ll be in separate places. Little did I know that. the extreme difference that the exhibits would be. John doesn’t really actually have an exhibit. His is a photo on the wall and a muted, very shortened video of the drone video. And that’s all they have.
SPEAKER 10 :
So Rob Harrison, we’ve got a couple of minutes left. This is a pretty big deal that you’re coming out to talk about this. Why? Why are you concerned about this?
SPEAKER 03 :
So I hadn’t paid any attention to it since 2018 when both members, both men had been awarded their medals of honor. When the museum piece happened, I saw Lori’s post and took interest and started looking at what was going on. Then I see a number of interviews from Slabinski. Then I realize the number of lies that are being told. And then you dig in a little bit deeper and you see who’s a member of the board at the National Medal of Honor Museum. And it’s a couple of retired SEALs that are essentially spinning a narrative. And it’s just wild. I’ve told you two lies from a citation. There’s a third that I won’t go to say that it’s a full-up lie, but it’s definitely a half-truth. So when I see the elevation and then the distancing of Slabinski from John Chapman and what should be 100% tied together at the Battle of Roberts Ridge, all you can draw from this is that it’s them trying to protect their own image because they don’t want to be looked upon as somebody that left another teammate behind. And all along, we would never have said that they did it on purpose because It was just a fact that happened in combat under extreme circumstances.
SPEAKER 10 :
And that does happen. But on my show, we always search for truth on these issues. And I think that’s the thing, Lori Longfritz, that you’re just so concerned about is you want to make sure that the truth about John is out there, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, right. They’re trying to bury the truth or separate the two. And you can’t separate the two. John saved their lives. And now they’re, well, for 23 years, they’ve been lying about it.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 11 :
If your listeners truly want to understand the Medal of Honor Museum stuff, I would definitely highly recommend them reading that article that you referenced in the beginning by Sean Naylor.
SPEAKER 10 :
Okay. Well, we’re out of time. I so appreciate Lori Longfritz, sister of John Chapman, of sharing this story. Rob Harrison, retired chief master sergeant in the Air Force. I appreciate it as well. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 11 :
Thank you, Kim.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thanks. It was a pleasure.
SPEAKER 10 :
And my friends, indeed, we have to know these stories and we do stand on the shoulders of giants. So, my friends, God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
