Medal of Honor Recipient To Have Movie Made Of His Heroics

It doesn’t take a movie to note and celebrate the achievements of U.S. airman John Chapman, but they’re making one anyway.

Jake Gyllenhaal will be portraying Chapman, the first man to win the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam war. The movie will be titled Combat Control.

Chapman is best known for his role in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was fighting on a snowy peak of Takur Gha. He charged into Al Qaeda bunkers to protect his comrades in battle. At first, it was believed he was shot and killed, but footage revealed that he got back to his feet. He continued to take out Al Qaeda fighters. During the gunfire, he was eventually fatally shot twice — but not before rescuing multiple teammates.

The movie will be directed by Sam Hargrave of Extraction fame, and be based on the book Alone at Dawn. It’s co-authored by Lori Longfritz (Chapman’s sister) and Dan Schilling, about Chapman’s last stand. Longfritz and Schilling are also credited in the movie.

The First Medal of Honor

Per Deadline, the movie will also feature plenty about Cora Alexander, a captain in the Air Force.

“Following his death, no one imagined it would take over a decade for the truth of what really happened on that snowy mountainside to emerge,” Deadline wrote. “Fifteen years later, Air Force Captain Cora Alexander is tasked with the nearly impossible job of investigating whether Chapman is a worthy recipient of the medal, despite no eyewitnesses to his actions and the top-secret world surrounding clandestine operations. Alexander has to uncover the truth, and in revealing Chapman’s sacrifice to the world, she forges her own path to self-forgiveness and personal redemption.”

There’s no word on who will portray Alexander or a release date for the movie.

Gyllenhaal is currently set to star as Sergeant John Kinley in a new action-thriller from Guy Ritchie.