World

Video of Final Moments Earning US Veteran Medal of Honor Emerges From Pentagon

Newly issued surveillance footage shows the last moments of heroism of Tech Sgt. John Chapman before he was killed by al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan in March 2002.
Sputnik

Later that month, Chapman received the Air Force Cross posthumously. Sixteen years later, as the war continues to rage on, Chapman will be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Chapman will be the 19th airman to be awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor in the US, and the first since the Vietnam War, Stars & Stripes reports.

Chapman was fighting in the early years of the war in Afghanistan along the Pakistani border on the Takur Ghar mountain. In the video, he can be seen dashing towards enemy positions, putting himself within their lines of fire, to secure his team. He charged into an enemy bunker to take out a combatant.

Chapman was wounded and lost consciousness, but when he regained it, he began fighting again. Fellow SEALs thought that he was dead when he passed out and left the battlefield. He was killed in action after he regained consciousness.

SEAL team leader Britt Slabinski, who was awarded Medal of Honor for the same battle, told officials that Chapman's actions secured the lives of his fellow troops.

Discuss