Good evening, im bradley graham, coowner of politics and prose along with my wife Lisa Muscatine and on behalf of everybody at p and p welcome 2 pm to p. M. At the wharf, thank you for coming and for bringing this evening of storm warnings and wind and rain. Evenings are getting to be all too frequent here in washington dc. Last august john chapman, air force combat controller was posthumously awarded the medal of honor or his heroic actions atop a snowcapped mountain in afghanistan in early 2002. Afew months after us forces began fighting in the country. Chapman was the first airman to receive the medal of honor is the vietnam war. He then attached to a Navy Seal Team assigned to establish a mountaintop observation post in connection with a major us to against al qaeda and Taliban Forces in the shower valley in eastern afghanistan. Approaching the site, the helicopter carrying the special Operations Unit came under heavy fire and one of the team members was thrown from the aircraft. Returning to try to rescue their teammate, chapman and the seals battled al qaeda fighters dug into the mountaintop. The seals, some of whom were seriously wounded withdrew under intense fire thinking chapman had been killed early in the battle. In fact, he hadnt been. And he continued to fight desperately trying to protect the lives of the rescue force of rangers who landed on the ridge top not long after and also ran into a similar ambush, tragically suffering additional casualties. It took the us military years to sort out all that happened that illfated day, even though a predator drone line above the mountain after the battle on video. The video is very grainy and it wasnt until a few years ago that government officials using advanced technology conducted a closer frame by frame analysis of chapmans own actions leading to the decision to award chapman the medal of honor on top of the air force cross previously escrowed. Now chapmans heroism is recounted in full in a book alone at dawn, of chapman sister lori coauthored with Dan Schilling who is here with us this evening. Dan himself is a special operations and air force combat control veteran. He retired in 2016 after 30 years of military service, planning to spend his time skiing and climbing mountains but then lori approached him with the idea for the book and he ended up agreeing to help right not only chapmans story but the broader story of combat, control teams , and elite force little known by the general public. Had numerous deployments around the world including a 1993 operation in somalia popularly known as black hawk down where hes credited with saving the lives of a ranger and a seal under fire. He later founded and then served as first commander of two special operations quadrants. Dan was going to be in conversation near this evening with a member of the administration from the department of health and Human Services works on preparedness and response, but hes stuck in new york because of the weather. So im going to wing it with him and were going to have a conversation for a little while and then were going to open it to questions though herewe go. Welcome, dan thanks for having me, that was a great introduction area is the most comprehensive interaction ive had because you got familiarity with the subject matter having written about as a journalist. I was at the washington post, i covered the pentagon at the time that this happened and two months after this tragic series of events i wrote a twopart series for the washington post, but in retrospect i guess i just stressed, scratched the surface looking at all that youve uncovered sense. This was a twoyear effort for me and i worked seven days a week writing this book. The first year was research and interviews through the air force and dod which grantedpermission. I meant writing the book which is a wonderfully miserable way to make a living as ive learned in my new career as awriter. I like to tell people if they guaranteed means of a probability of low income and thats been my approach which is fine. I enjoy having written but what i really am after is im on a mission. This is what i tell people wherever i go in every interview that idid in promoting this book. But before i tell you what my mission is , i have a question for you. Audience participation. Im going to say a word and i want you to say outloud the first two words that come to mind. Dontsecondguess it, just whatever comes to mind. U. S. Navy. Seals. Seals and ships, thats what everybody saysand thats fine. Thats a great marketing and encapsulation of what an essence is that people would like to see. One people think about air force, they say pilots, they dont even say planes, they say pilots so my mission is to change the American Publics perception of the entire United States air force with a book. Thats my mission is not an easy mission because the air force doesntdo himself any favors on a regular basis, the hornets itself culturally as youre going to learn , theres noreason for them to because as you mentioned , the book is about john chapman but also beyond the heroism of this individual who sacrificed his life on the altar of brotherhood on the top of the mountain, about the community belongs to and these are the deadliest individuals to walk a battlefield in the history of human warfare. Period. Why dont we know much about combat controls . The reason you dont hear about them is theyve always existed in the scenes and their role is to be the expert on the battlefield that does things in conjunction with larger groups. There integrated as individuals, but an Army Special Forces 18, australian sas, everybody in the world, one of the benefits of being a controller as they workfrom the best forces around the world in a way that nobody else does. They have to be able to fight but they have to be able to do something more. Thats a perfect segue into what it is a combat controller does that is different because foundational he combat controllers Training Pipeline is directly comparable to what you would see a seal going through. They do everything a seal does tactically. They jump, scuba dive, combat nine, they shoot weapons, do small units, tactics, all the things that are thefoundation of modern special operations warfare but to that foundation, they add a Technical Expertise that is not resident anywhere in special operations and thatis this. If you and i are in a gunfight and youre going to be a green beret or a seal , what do you want to be . Seal thats what everybody says. And this is the mongol horde, as theyre coming to us we have to take the politics and prose poster. Youve got your gun and youre going to reach out and pointed at people and thinking two dimensions. Near, far, left, right and youre going to connect kinetically with one bullet from you to that gentleman there and thats how you kill people, not dave but the guy behind him. And youre going to shoot people. As a combat controller i dont think in two dimensions. I live in the battle space and occupy a four dimensional world. I think near far, left right, up down and time and i view the battle space around me very much in that way because what the combat controllers do that make them the deadliest people in the history of warfare is this. They wield that Precision Power that comes from the air in a manner thatnobody else can do because they , one of the things about in combat controller is i have to remember all the call signs of all the aircraft in my area of operation. I have to understand the two dozen types of allied and us aircraft. Their capabilities, their limitations, and the 200 types of ordinance on top of that and when i have a battlefield that completely goes sideways which is where heroism always comes from, this story is no difference, i have a 70 yearold wield that power. There are people who call in air strikes but nobody is qualified as they also go through air Traffic Control and thats why there pipeline is longer, more intellectually challenging, more complex, more costly than any other special Operations Training force in the world. How far back to they go . They were founded in 1953 and born of the catastrophes that came from poorly executed Airborne Operations in the second world war. Market garden, doesnt matter, any of those and when air force became a separate service in 1947 the air force realized we want this capability because one of the problems they had was the army give them Due Diligence and aircraft were getting misdirected, shot down by friendlys and the air force realized were going to control these things so combat control predates their betterknown deals and green beretcounterparts. Lets get to the specifics of whats known as the battle , the name of this mountaintop in afghanistan where the battle took place. Apart from the heroism of john chapman and some of the other forces involved, what is this particular battle important and why is it also embarrassing for the military . Its important because its a great example, theres a beautiful well articulated article on the pitfalls of technology and how as a commander, im far removed and looking through and intelligence isr feeds, will call it which comes from a predator drone or some other remote vehicle. I think i really understand whats happening but its no distraught. You dont know whats happening you can over lie on that and you can try and overrule the man on the ground. Thats a fatal mistake we learn over and over again. Thats the biggest take away when it comes to tactics and Lessons Learned at a strategic level. The battle itself is important for a couple of reasons. First of all, specifically it is probably the most valorous battle proportionally in the history of the United States, 25 americans were on top of this mountain at 6 00 in the morning and of those 25, 18 wouldearn a silver star or above. Now, that is an amazing statistic and thats the heroism that was on display that day by everybody on the ground. There was nobody on the mountain that wasnt a hero and nobody on the mountain that didnt do the best they could and these were the best in the world. But to lead into john chapmans journey and the end of his life but i also ask what is this battle turned out to be an nursing for the military . Its true so many acted so courageously on top of that mountain but theres a question about whether they should have ever been sent there to begin with. I maintain as a subject Matter Expert they should not have been. They should have been to the top, they should not have been delivered there by a helicopter. The guy who was running these operations was a delta force officer with a dear friend of mine and hes in the book, youre going to read about him and he was running a advance force operations and these were the operations between enemy lines in support of operation anaconda, the backdrop for this story but what the regular army was going to drive caliban forces against the mountains and hammer and handle them, that was the concept, the kind ofoperation the army embraced. Chief labors job was to put the best special Operations Forces behind enemy lines which were delta force operators, with combat controllers. These hidden individuals to call airstrikes do destroy the taliban and so the delta force guys and the seals are there but their job, the mission is a combat controlled mission. People just dont know about that and what people did very well, hes the guy who understands history and strategy andtactics very well. It is a combat leader and he says if were going to do this wehave to sneak in my enemy lines. They went in by atvsor vehicle dropoffs and moved by foot. No helicopters. Because if you have a helicopter at the top of the mountain behind enemy lines, the enemyknows youre there , thats not Rocket Science and what youre alluding to was the decision to force the issue. They pushed the issue because they wanted more guys in the fight which is a combat decision but it has consequences in this case. And they delivered these guys to the top of this mountain which happened to be occupied by two dozen whose back fighters that had traveled through pakistan to get on with american troops, they were there to fight and they built the bunkers onthe mountain. So when the helicopter arrives six seals and john chapman, the helicopter came under fire and was shot down and a seal named neil roberts fell out of the back of the helicopter, he wasnt tethered in and they lost into the back of the mountain and the helicopter crash. If youre john chapman andthe seals you have a choice. Though not really. Youve lost a guy, what are you going to do . Go back. You have to go back andthats what they did. Their longrange reconnaissance behind enemy lines mission is now an assault on the summit where they know theyre going to be outnumbered. Bad guys know youre coming back to collect your good guy who they already killed so they strip down all their gear, mo, mbgs, guns and radios, lets go. But the bad guys knew this was us mo. Helicopters . Know, that we go back and get those left behind so they knew we were coming back. They knew we were coming back so when the next helicopter came back with five surviving seals and chapman, they were under fire immediately. Theres a Youtube Video we created about 10 days ago, its had 3 million views. And it just shows from the cia predator drone ridge and gunship footage, its the first video capturing a medal of honor inthe course of being earned. But the events are, they get off the helicopter. John chapman on his own charges into this machine gun nest at 10,000 feet in the snow straight uphill into an enemy bunker under this withering pointblank fire and kill them at a distance of me to twice you, about 10 feet and saves all the seals lives, eliminates, theyre getting shot from every direction. He did this on his own, the seals were behind him, he charged ahead of the seals and it was the right decision to make. He knew he needed to do this. In the course of his actions he got shot, was mortally wounded. The seals had an untenable position and the team leader made the decision to retreat. Its a decision that happens on the battlefield and it was his decision. They didnt check john chapman was the team leader believed john was dead. We now know he was not and so when the seals retreated they left a man behind and he was incapacitated. He didnt move for 20 minutes and they retreated off the mountain. So john chapman recovers, finds himself alone on this mountain, its still dark, 5 20 in the morning. Sunrise is not for another 40 minutes and hes in this bunker and the enemy realizes theres a live american in there and they start trying to displace him by telling him , thats how they display somebody in a battle how many enemies . Two dozen. He is bleeding out, he is going to die and john makes a stand. He survives several charges, fights handtohand, i gotthe forensic pathology, i have everything. I know more about this battle than any person on planet earth. I can state that authoritatively and what he did is in the autopsy hes got contusions on his hand, scalp, face, nose, neck. These were wounds he experienced and the field said he got shot twice which he did and later on he received shrapnel wounds 16 times. What weapon did he have . He had an m4 so he has the suppressed four and he recovers and finds himself on the receiving end of rocket propelled grenades and he fights handtohand, kills a number of people, will never know how many and he survives until sunrise. Now hes occupying this bunker which came to be called bunker one that he has had for 40 minutes and in the sunlight because its now gone the gunship that refused to leave the gunfight, they never quite in the day, they were flying with sunglasses on and refuseto abandon this man on the ground. There flying andsunglasses. Is now with no advantage, mortally wounded, shot 10 times. Heres a helicopter, a third helicopter laboring up the mountain and theres only one place its going to be going. Takur ghar. That was a helicopter with the rescue force. Why are they going back into the same place where all this trouble had just occurred . And anybody told them . Everybody told them. They knew they were going into a hornets nest, they did not have all the facts and that is the business of work there. Its an ugly, chaotic , unpleasant experience that you carry forthe rest of your life. This is a great example of that. So theyre going for the same reason john chapman and the seals went back to get neil roberts which is a composite force. It was rangers, air force tax t, to air force specialists and another combat controller named gabebrown and their only information was you have to go rescue seals that are on a mountain. And they didnt know about chapman. Nobody know about chapman. They didnt notice the seals hadleft. The seals were communicating and thats the breakdown that also happened and these things have cascading effects. So this is the force thats now coming up the mountain, 18 men including the aircrew which are 1 60 special Operations Aviation regiment, the best pilots in the world as many people in this audience can attest to and im one of them and he makes the decision, i cant say what he thought but i know what he decided. John chapman mortally wounded, bleeding out in shock, heavy blood loss having fought for 40 minutes alone on a mountain for an hour makes the decision to climb out of this bunker and start aggressively attacking theenemy in three different directions. When you watch the video it is almost heartwrenching. Sometimes when i watch it i go to pieces but what he does is hes defending the helicopter that he knows have to come in land at this one spot and he basically sacrificed himself on the altar of brotherhood to protect those guys and he did. It got shot down but they couldnt displace and put a heavy machine gun and therefore more rocket propelled grenades and the pilot did an exceptional job of landing malachi helicopter up right after he got shot down and in the course of this battle john chapman was shot through the heart from behind and his Blood Pressure dropped to zero and he expired and the last things he wouldve seen was the battle in front of him. The air force did ultimately awarded him the air force cross which itself was a huge honor for a combat controller. Its a huge honor for anybody, its the highest award you can get a military service is a Service Cross air force and it was a big