Vietnam War pilot and longest-held Marine POW laid to rest at Arlington
Decades after surviving more than 2,600 days as a prisoner of war, Vietnam veteran Harlan Chapman has been laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
During the war, he was a Marine captain piloting his F-8E Crusader, deep in enemy territory. On Nov. 5, 1965, Chapman was flying fast and low over Vietnam, as he dodged heavy anti-aircraft fire and tried to get his Crusader’s 2,000-pound bombs to his target.
The last fighter in his 32-aircraft strike group, Chapman was facing the brunt of the enemy’s air defenses. He dived even lower, and as an anti-aircraft round ripped through his plane, he released his bombs on the target, he told the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. The next thing Chapman remembered, he was parachuting down into a muddy rice paddy. He was bound for seven years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prison camp, the longest endured by any Marine during the war.
Sixty years later, Chapman was laid to rest in Section 83 of Arlington National Cemetery on Oct. 20, the cemetery announced on Friday. He died on May 6, 2024, at the age of 89 after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease several years earlier.
“It took a lot of sacrifice,” said Cmdr. Trenten Long, a Navy chaplain who presided over Chapman’s service, “and now he comes to his final resting place.”
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