Good!
It’s about time! I’ve been aware of his actions since he died and this is a long time coming.
As a retired Air Force SMSgt, the joke about airmen rarely facing any danger but a paper cut is often true, although we still have an obligation to fight if ordered to do so. However, our skills and positions mean we’re just not used that way, as a highly advanced and technically powerful air force needs those skills to maintain it’s edge.
Guys like TSgt Chapman and other Air Force combat controllers are really a step above!
Good for TSgt Chapman and for the Air Force. The USAF took advantage of the DoD wide review of combat awards to justify the upgrade of TSgt Chapman’s award of the Air Force Cross. I think that his case met the threshold.
The nature of modern day air way and the technological superiority of the USAF translates into a dearth of traditional heroic actions among airmen. Most of combat awards to airmen have gone to those operating in a ground role and to enlisted airmen. Officers dominate the air combat role, but it is the enlisted joes carrying the fight for the Air Force based on their boots on the ground with their Special Operations, Army, and coalition partners. Chapman, not Grabeski, represents the modern Air Force combat heros.
Gets old....
As a retired, prior enlisted, officer I do laugh at the "chair force" jokes, but we have some of the biggest bad-asses out there. The PJ's and CCT's have always been some of the best, if not the best, in the entire US military.
I have had several good friends who were both and they were some of the greatest war fighters I have ever met, and I have been around thousands from every branch of Service.
Here’s the drone footage.....Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman Firefight Afghanistan Battle of Takur Ghar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHUh2h20IPE