Col. Mason Dula - Remarks at a Plaque Unveiling Ceremony for MSgt John A. Chapman

USAF Col. Mason R. Dula, Special Warfare Training Wing commander, delivers remarks honoring MSgt. John A. Chapman during the Medal of Honor recipient's plaque unveiling ceremony at Airmen’s Heritage Park, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph. Chapman was a combat controller who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor Aug. 22, 2018, for his actions in the Battle of Takur Ghar during the War in Afghanistan. He is the first Airman to receive the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. Delivered 4 March 2021. Courtesy DVIDS. Video by Marcelo Joniaux 502nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Authenticated transcript and enhanced audio at: americanrhetoric.com/speeches...
Key Moments:
"All the good speeches about Master Sergeant Chapman may, in fact, have already been given. But we can never tell too many stories about Chappy. Master Sergeant John Chapman is now immortal. We teach young airmen about him in our professional development guides. We teach old airmen about him in our PME [Professional Military Education] courses. Chappy was a man and a husband and a magnet for children, including his own. He wasn't a legend or a case study in service before self. He was just a teammate and we loved him."
"If we're going to talk about the elephant in the room, Chappy had this ridiculous mustache and he was inordinately proud of it. It was tolerated on the home front for reasons that can't be explained. He refused to shave it despite endless volumes of ribbing, and he was fond of combing it after he ate in the team room and sprinkling little food particles onto his teammates' kit and computers."
"His one saving grace is that he was half dolphin, likely a legacy of his near-Olympian career as a diver and a swimmer. He could swim circles around anybody in the team room, a fact that he'd like to remind his teammates of after dive workup admissions by reporting back to the team room with a neatly-pressed, to-standard BDU top, some Teva sandals, and a brightly colored Speedo, and then pretending that nothing was amiss going about his duties for the rest of the day. That's not an amusing quirk in most team rooms."
"Master Sergeant John Chapman is...the best of our community. He's the best of our Air Force. He's the best our nation can produce, and he belongs on the walls of this memorial next to the rest of the Air Force's heroes....Master Sergeant John Chapman stares back at you from the pictures on our walls with the moral authority of a Medal of Honor winner."