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A ceremony at Fort Bragg Thursday honored the first Air Force member to earn the Medal of Honor since Vietnam.
   This is the highest military honor awarded to a service member.
   President Trump posthumously awarded Master Sergeant John Chapman last summer.
   Bryan Mims shares Chapman's heroic tale -- and how he's inspiring a new generation of airmen.

   They dropped, right there: A general in dress uniform, airmen in camouflage.

   Push-ups, lifting up the memory of their fallen.
   

   A towering figure, Master Sergeant John Chapman.
   

{***GENERAL STEPHEN WILSON, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, AIR FORCE***}
<"JOHN'S ACTIONS ON THE 11,000-FOOT RIDGE 17 YEARS AGO IS THE STUFF OF LEGEND.">

   March 4th, 2002: Takur Ghar, Afghanistan.
   As an elite Combat Controller, his chopper was ambushed.
   A team member fell out.
   Sergeant Chapman and his comrades landed in an enemy stronghold to rescue their brother.
   He would trudge up a mountainside, in deep snow, in a blizzard of hostile fire, to single-handedly kill all the soldiers in an enemy bunker.
   Never mind his own gunshot wounds, this dad of two daughters charged toward the machine gun fire of a second bunker.

{***GENERAL STEPHEN WILSON***}
<"JOHN'S RESPONSE TO BEING HIT WAS NOT TO GIVE UP, NOT TO LET THE HARDSHIP AND OPPRESSION TURN HIM BACK.">

   Sergeant Chapman and six other U.S. service members would not come down from that mountain alive.
   But his gallantry is credited for saving the lives of most of his team.

{***MAJOR MICHAEL BAIN***}
<"IT'S HARD TO FIND THE BRAIN AND THE BRAWN WRAPPED IN ONE PERSON.">

   Major Michael Bain served with Sergeant Chapman in the Air Force and were close friends.
   This man of such fortitude embodied a spirit of such humility.

{***MICHAEL BAIN***}
<"HE'S LIKE MIKE, I TRY EVERY DAY TO BE MEDIOCRE. BUT HE WASN'T MEDIOCRE AT ANYTHING -- HE EXCELLED AT EVERYTHING. BUT HE THOUGHT SO, NOT LOW OF HIMSELF, BUT JUST I CAN DO BETTER, I CAN DO BETTER, I CAN DO BETTER. THAT WAS INFECTIOUS.">

   A life-sized figure of John Chapman now stands at the Combat Control School's museum.
   His wife, Valerie Nessel, invoked his name to empower the school's newest graduates.

{***VALERIE NESSEL***}
<"YOUR MISSION, AS YOU DON THE SCARLET BERET IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, IS TO CONTINUE JOHN'S LEGACY. YOU DO THIS QUIETLY, WITH HUMILITY, PRIDE, COMPASSION, CRUSHING FORCE WHEN NEEDED, ALL FOR A GREATER GOOD.">

   A widow's words, a hero's face -- they're a powerful push.

The life-size figure of Sergeant Chapman and a replica of his Medal of Honor will be on permanent display at the Benini Heritage Center.