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Marine Vietnam Vet LTC Harlan Chapman then and now.
Episode 2782 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about Marine Vietnam Vet Harlan Chapman and his life dedicated to honor and integrity. The featured story appeared on the Task and Purpose website and was titled: The Marine who was held longest as a Vietnam POW has passed away.
It was submitted by Jeff Schogol. He is a senior staff writer for Task & Purpose. He reports on both the Defense Department as a whole as well as individual services, covering a variety of topics that include personnel, policy, military justice, deployments, and technology. His apartment in Alexandria, Va., has served as the Task & Purpose Pentagon bureau since the pandemic first struck in March 2020. The dwelling is now known as Forward Operating Base Schogol.
In this story, Schogol reported that when Lt. Col. Harlan Chapman arrived in Hawaii after his release from seven years in North Vietnamese prisoner of war camps, Marine Lt. Gen. Louis Wilson was there to meet him. “Welcome back to the Marine Corps,” Wilson told Chapman. “Thank you, general,” Chapman replied, “But I never left.”
Chapman spent more time as a prisoner of war than any other Marine held in captivity during the Vietnam War, according to an official Marine Corps history of the conflict.
“Despite extreme cruelties during interrogation periods and severe maltreatment on a continual basis, Lieutenant Colonel Chapman distinguished himself by his indomitable spirit and dogged tenacity,” his Silver Star citation reads. “Refusing to provide the enemy with information, even that of a biographical nature, he aroused the increased wrath of his captors.”
Chapman’s wife Fran said this about her husband: throughout Chapman’s life, honor, integrity and family were his guiding principles,
Listen to episode 2782 and discover moreabout Marin Vietnam Vet Harlan Chapman and his life dedicated to honor and integrity.
