SEALs Want Chapman's Medal - Ep 624

Ones Ready

The episode explores the intense controversy surrounding a new documentary that challenges the established narrative of MSgt John Chapman's

Key takeaways

• A new documentary suggests MSgt John Chapman was killed within minutes of the second insertion, contradicting the 2018 Medal of Honor upgrade account.
• The hosts argue that AFSOC teams performed exhaustive analysis of ISR footage to support the original upgrade decision.

Main topics

• John Chapman Medal of Honor controversy
• ISR footage and evidence analysis

Notable quotes

The truth does matter. I agree. The truth does matter. at some point, like respond to it, but at some point you got to go, dudes, let it go.

Conclusion

The episode highlights the high evidentiary bar required to overturn e

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) One's ready. So you Speaker 4 (0:07) guys are going into special warfare assessment selection is an attributes based selection model. What does that mean? Speaker 1 (0:12) Guys, are we running right now to get there or are we practicing running? Speaker 4 (0:16) Practicing. Speaker 1 (0:16) Right? I can't freaking. Speaker 4 (0:20) So there's a holistic picture that we're looking for. The instructors are giving you input and we're expecting an output. And everything is for a reason. If you guys haven't heard my spiel yet, everything that we do, every single exercise has a connection to the job that you're trying to do. Speaker 4 (0:39) We don't want people at INDOCS, Special Warfare Assessment Selection, whatever they're going to call the new course when it inevitably changes somewhere down the road. I don't care what they call it. What I need is you to show me the raw materials for the things that I want to build you into. Just like everything else, it's a crawl, walk, run. Speaker 1 (0:58) I can run to Keesler just like this. All the way to ACC, you never quit. All the way to ACC, you never quit. Speaker 3 (1:07) Yeah, here we go. How about that? Hey everybody, welcome back to the Wins Ready Podcast. So, I don't get into internet or social media drama because it's all fake. Speaker 5 (1:19) Yeah, you Speaker 3 (1:19) do. Speaker 4 (1:20) Do Speaker 3 (1:21) I really? That much? Speaker 4 (1:22) For real? Like, do I? Speaker 4 (1:26) Yeah, dude, he's going to internalize that. Like he's really going to go through a process now, Trent. Everybody else just laughed because we knew that you were rage baiting him. But he's those those have real consequences, buddy. I Speaker 2 (1:37) mean, Andy puts out the video and we have a peaches reaction in like 15 seconds. Come on. I just knew it. I Speaker 3 (1:45) knew it. I knew it. So, Speaker 4 (1:47) you Speaker 3 (1:47) know, I don't play with in, you know, Andy's been responding to me and I haven't responded to him yet because I'm like, dude. I think he thinks I'm mad about it and I'm really not. And I really, I go about it from the aspect of, look, he's been upgraded to a Medal of Honor. It happened in 2018. It was well known that the SEALs were not, the NSW community was not happy about even the Air Force Cross thing. Let alone, they tried to stifle, just the NSW community tried to stifle the Medal of Honor upgrade. That happens in 2018. And now we're still banging on about it. And you know what? Andy, he made a comment that I don't necessarily disagree with. He's like, hey, the truth matters. I agree. The truth does matter. Speaker 4 (2:45) Yeah, okay. Speaker 3 (2:47) at some point, like respond to it, but at some point you got to go, dudes, let it go. Because in my opinion, at some point Speaker 4 (2:54) you have to agree that it's the truth and you need to stop. And I'm telling you the only thing I'm trying desperately not to form an opinion. Obviously, obviously I am closely emotionally connected to this event. This happened when we were all in, you either knew Chappie's name or knew the man. His mom has sent me cookies downrange. Yes. The thing that Chappie's mom did, she used to send you cookies. And like, we were there over Christmas. She sent us Christmas cookies, man. Like, this is not some. conspiracy theory that doesn't actually matter. So it does. So full transparency, it matters. I'm trying to be objective on it. But when you say, well, we're just doing it because the truth matters, bro, this had better be the most clear cut walk off. Absolute. No doubt. When this gets over, I should have this. My worldview of this entire thing should be absolutely shattered. It should turn everything I thought about upside down. And if it falls anything short than that, then what are you doing? Because that's not the truth. Speaker 4 (3:54) I think sometimes you can retard Max a little bit and you can just look at a thing and go, I have all the information in front of me. I think that this is the case. And you can maybe not know all the information, but you're like, that's it. That's what we have with the ISR footage, with the 20 years of people. We got people that were in the C-130 orbiting overhead that were watching it live through a screen telling people, you guys are saying the wrong thing here. And they're like, you don't understand. You've been lied to. Like, bro, I'm not playing that game here. Speaker 3 (4:22) No, I know. And again, you look at it, and I'm trying to articulate this, and I'm doing a really bad job. Speaker 3 (4:34) Yes. So the truth matters. And I agree with you. It needs to be earth shattering, stuff like that. But now after almost, you know, we're coming up on eight years after he was already awarded the Medal of Honor. Right. What do we do? We're still talking about it. And it's like, well, you know, we've got this documentary coming out. Speaker 2 (4:50) Yeah, we were talking about it for a long time. It was just a it just was. Yes. And that's and you can't you Speaker 4 (4:57) cannot ignore the timing of this. So let's let's just. Let me be the most gracious that I possibly can. Okay, so for 20 years, you've had the same information in some form or fashion. That ISR stuff has existed. I understand that maybe information pops up late. You're telling me that you finally got the last piece to this puzzle that you've been building. The guy said he's been doing it for like six years. For six years, you've been building this puzzle. You finally got the last piece and it just so happened to be ahead of a movie that would undermine. a narrative that's been pervasive in this entire thing, which is the SEAL community being insular, protecting their own, and sometimes doing so from the outside looking in, not so morally sound, right? Yes. You're telling me it just so happened to be done now and there was no intent behind the time. That's what you want me to believe. Speaker 1 (5:49) Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:50) Seems a little ridiculous. Also, they keep referring to Dan Schilling. They're like the Dan Schilling footage that he released. It's like, I don't know if they're tracking the for the upgrade to the Medal of Honor. And we've talked about this before. It's it was a team at AFSOC that spent. And a crazy amount Speaker 4 (6:09) of Speaker 2 (6:09) time. Speaker 4 (6:09) I know two Speaker 2 (6:09) of the officers Speaker 4 (6:10) that Speaker 2 (6:10) work like 90 hour weeks Speaker 4 (6:12) on stitching this stuff together. They got decorated for it. By frame. By frame. Speaker 2 (6:16) It was an entire team of people like bleeding from their eyeballs from staring at this stuff for so long because because of the pushback from NSW that it required like such a high level of fidelity on the actions from the Pentagon to get the Medal of Honor pushed over. So. The research has been done by a whole bunch of people. Again, we're biased, maybe a little bit, but we know these people. And AFSOC, it's not Dan Schilling didn't go out there and get Chappie the Medal of Honor by himself. He wrote the book. It seems weird to me. The way they're going about it is a little weird. Well, and I'm going to draw this parallel. Speaker 4 (6:59) What did we just see with the Lindsay Clancy trial? We had a pretty clear-cut case. A woman killed her three kids. And then there was this little question of was she mentally competent or whatever. And then the internet blew up and suddenly her husband is a criminal mastermind that took her watch and sent an email and was at a store and changed clothes and all the other things, the blood spatter and the forensics and all this other stuff. I can't help but draw a parallel here. We're digging into stuff. On the second reel, we can play both of these reels for you to show you. The second one was like, oh, well, you've never seen the real ISR footage. So now they're calling into question the ISR footage. There's a timestamp, a geo stamp issue and all this other stuff. That's, bro, that's crazy. That's a crazy call to have to make here after looking at this. And, you know, like sometimes again, the objective, maybe this is the thing that happened. Maybe, you know, Pete Blaber is on record for years, for like 20 years saying exactly what John Chapman did and people that were on the ground with him. Slabinski has a quote. Speaker 5 (7:56) where he Speaker 4 (7:56) said if it wasn't for john that took out that first bunker i don't know what would happen how do you do that if you got shot right off the plane like you guys are stuck at question one yeah Speaker 3 (8:04) like what are you doing the first three to four minutes like Speaker 4 (8:06) you just it's it's like special pleading it's all special pleading is a logical fallacy where there's a set of rules and you're asking it not to apply to your one thing this one time it's what special pleading is that's what they're doing they're like listen I know that everybody has agreed that this ISR footage has been it, but this one time you have to believe me, the timestamps off and that makes the entire story different. That doesn't follow. Yeah. Speaker 3 (8:31) Yeah. And, and, you know, there was talking about, uh, you know, while I was calling him on the radio and he wasn't answering