Let’s remember Nathan Chapman, who was the first soldier to die from enemy fire in the Afghanistan war, on this day in 2002 (January 4)
There’s little about the story of Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman, of Puyallup, that isn’t heartbreaking.
After the 9/11 attacks, Chapman reportedly told his wife, “I have to go” to Afghanistan, and then “ there’s a fifty-fifty chance I’m not coming home.” That turned out to be sadly prophetic, as Chapman became the first casualty of the Afghanistan war.
The Washington Post noted, “Chapman’s death was a watershed event for a country that didn’t know it was headed into a seemingly endless war, where the news of those lost would turn into a kind of white noise for many Americans. The first of its kind in Afghanistan, his death drew national attention, including a televised funeral.” Close to 7,000 soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense’s own numbers.
The New York Daily News said, in 2010 (which I’m quoting at length because it’s so instructive):
The odds got better soon after Chapman arrived in Afghanistan. Just months after 9/11, Special Forces virtually trapped senior Al Qaeda leaders in Tora Bora.
The good guys had not suffered a single combat fatality and things looked so bleak for the bad guys that Osama Bin Laden made out his will. “Our prayers were not answered,” he radioed his followers. “I am sorry for getting you involved in this battle.”
Of course, Bin Laden could not have imagined the Bush administration would rely on Afghan mercenaries to augment the 90 Special Forces operators.
“We’re going to lose our prey if we’re not careful,” CIA chief of counterterrorism Henry Crumpton warned President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. “How bad off are these Afghani forces, really?” Bush inquired, as recounted in a Senate report. “Are they up to the job?”
“Definitely not,” was the reply.
Crumpton repeated the plea to send in Marines and Rangers who were definitely up to the job. The plea was ignored; Bin Laden fled.
Special Forces kept up the hunt. Chapman seemed still in his usual high spirits two weeks later, when he made a Christmas Day call home with a satellite phone.
“I’m with my second family; they’re a great bunch of guys,” he said.
His kids had a video message that Chapman sent his first family. “I sure miss you guys,” he said.
On Jan. 3, 2002, the hunt took Chapman and a small team to Khost. The next day, they approached a checkpoint set up by a local warlord. Gunfire erupted; Chapman was fatally wounded.
By one report, Chapman was shot by a 14-year-old Al Qaeda sympathizer who fled into Pakistan. Many believe he was killed on orders from the warlord, who was angry the Americans had chosen to do business with a rival.
What came out years later was that Chapman was the communications specialist for a CIA-led paramilitary team called Team Hotel. Per, again, the Washington Post, “Chapman went to war as a member of what the CIA called Team Hotel — a six-man unit composed of three Special Forces soldiers, two CIA paramilitary officers and a CIA contractor. Chapman and two other Green Berets were selected from more than 1,300 soldiers in 1st Special Forces Group.”
It took the CIA thirteen years to acknowledge Chapman’s death and then-CIA director John Brennan reportedly told Chapman’s father “it should have been done a long time ago,” without giving any explanation for why it wasn’t.
If that wasn’t heart-wrenching enough, Chapman’s widow Renae has spoken out about her problems dealing with the Veteran’s Affairs office. According to CBS News:
Nearly as long as Chapman, who attended President George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech as a guest of First Lady Laura Bush in 2002, has been reeling from the loss of her husband, she has been facing another battle: the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
“Military benefits are a battle. It’s an ongoing war,” Chapman said. The military wife said the VA benefits are “really bad” and that the VA is disorganized, difficult to maneuver and looking for an excuse not to pay benefits.
“They refuse to pay for the benefits you were promised. You have to get an attorney for everything,” Chapman, who has faced debilitating medical issues since her husband’s death. “They clerical error you to death. They paperwork you to death.”
For instance, Chapman said she didn’t receive owed payments for dental work because the VA “insisted” that Nathan died a year earlier than he did, which would mean that some of her benefits would have expired.
She also said she was denied medical benefits because the VA thought she had outside primary health insurance, which she says she did not.
Since injured and deceased servicemembers began returning home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, members of the military have faced challenges facing the Veterans Affairs Department. For example, the VA has a backlog of 900,000 disability claims and a high error rate on claims.
Most recently, Chapman said the VA has been withholding her benefits for the past 11 months until she submits paperwork proving she is not remarried. She said she has faxed them and mailed the necessary documents many times without a successful outcome from the VA. She said she has called numerous times but hasn’t had any luck that way either. “Sometime their wait time is so long they won’t allow you to wait,” Champan said.
Dealing with the VA is “a full time job,” she said.
What I find so tragic about this case was that the government he pledged his life to defending failed him and his family in life and death, across Republican and Democratic administrations (systemic dysfunction at the VA was one of the genuine scandals of the Obama presidency). Nathan Chapman went to fight a war that didn’t have a clear plan for victory, and when the lack of plan failed, the CIA kept what happened secret for over a decade and the VA made it nearly impossible for Renae Chapman to receive the benefits she was promised, because of bureaucratic dysfunction.
The sad story of Sergeant First Class Nathan Chapman is one that should be studied and remembered for a long time because it is such an instructive lesson about what the leaders who send our soldiers into war should be asking: Are we giving our soldiers the support they need to carry out their mission? And are we prepared to support the soldier and their family when the war is over?
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